INDIA IN CEYLONESE HISTORY, SOCIETY AND CULTURE

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

Falk Flays and Dances of Kerala

Handsome Beggars; The Radiy as of Ceylon
The Karova of Ceylon; Society and Culture
Ceylon; A Pictorial Survey of the Peoples and Arts
Publications in the Ethnological Survey of Ceylon,
Gov eminent Publications Bureau, Colombo-
1. The Sigiriya Frescoes
2. The Kinnaraya: The Tribe of Mat Weavers
3. The Pattini Cult as a Sodo-religious Institution
4. The Ahikuntakaya: The Ceylon Gipsy Tribe

5- rah Spf ft? § », o Vi <\Jc *- t v r > tH

< /
o ^ 5XTV\.
<r , :1U (
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The Toluwil Buddha, Anuradhapura
INDIA IN CEYLONESE HISTORY,
SOCIETY AND CULTURE

M. D. RAGHAVAN

INDIAN COUNCIL FOR CULTURAL RELATIONS

ASIA PUBLISHING HOUSE

BOMBAY - CALCUTTA - NEW DELHI - MADRAS
LUCKNOW - LONDON - NEW YORK
 Indian Council for Cultural Relations
Mew Delhi* 1964

PRINTED IN INDIA

AT THE DELHI PRBSS, AND PUBLISHED BY

P-S. JAYASINGHB, ASIA PUBLISHINQ HOUSE* BOMBAY
 FOREWORD

M. D. Raghavan, Ethnologist Emeritus of the National

Dr.
Museums of Ceylon, has established his reputation as a careful scholar
by his systematic studies in different aspects of life in
Ceylon. Pub-
lished in several volumes of the Spolia Zeylanica, Colombo National
Museum, his was perhaps the first systematic survey of the cultural

anthropology of Ceylon.
With his deep knowledge of Ceylonese history and culture and his
sympathy for India, he is eminently fitted to undertake a study of the
ways in which India and Ceylon have reacted on one another. I am,

therefore, glad that in his present work he has drawn upon historical
text as well as legends and traditions which have become part of

folklore to give an account of the age-old traditions between the two

countries. A reference to some of the themes included in the book

gives us an idea of the breadth of his approach. He has interesting

things to say on Sita’s sojourn in Lanka and on the pomp and
pageantry of the days of Ravana. His survey deals with the influx of
immigrants to Ceylon and the reaction of the Sinhalese social system

to the Indian institution of caste as well as the court life of Sinhalese

royalty. No study of Indo-Ceylonese relations would be complete
without an account of the Buddhist links which tied and still tie India
and Ceylon in friendship and amity. Nor has he forgotten the art
of Ceylon with special reference to literature, architecture, dance and
drama. A free translation of the Malala Kathava, a dramatic narra-
tion of the exploits of seven Malabar princes, is an interesting appen-
dix to the whole volume.
Dr. M. D. Raghavan has earned the gratitude of students of
Indo-Ceylonese history by giving us a vivid account of Ceylon’s
regional cultures along with the general features which characterise
them. These studies add to our knowledge of the living links and
subtle influences that have obtained between India and Ceylon. No
two countries have closer affinities and it is right and proper that

there should be greater knowledge and understanding of their values.

Nm Delhi HUMAYUN KABIR

November 1, 1963 Minister
Scientific Research and Cultural Affairs
Government Of India
 PREFACE

No attempt at a comprehensive study of the social and cultural rela-

tions between India and Ceylon has been made yet, barring incidental
observations by Ananda Coomaraswamy in the course of his work.
Medieval Sinhalese Art. The field is, by and large, an untrodden field.
The reciprocal relations between India and Ceylon have a sanctity
which distinguish them from Ceylon’s other contacts overseas. This has
been emphasised more than ever before by the celebration of the Buddha
Jayanti in 1956, an event in which both India and Ceylon took part with
equal enthusiasm. If anything has brought to the fore and rejuvenated
the ancient kinship existing over the ages between the two lands, it is this
celebration of the anniversary of the Mahaparinirvana of the Buddha two
thousand and fifty years back.
The appearance of this book, however, is not occasional. It has grown
and taken shape in my hands in the course of several years dating back to
the late twenties, when my work on the folk songs of Kerala was produced,
pointing to the affinities, social and cultural, between Lanka and Kerala
of the Middle Ages ( Indian Antiquary, LXI, A Ballad of Kerala).
This many-sided study could not achieve full fruition until
several years later. Opportunities for extensive work in the rich field
of Ceylonese culture, in the course of my work on the Ethnological
Survey of Ceylon from 1946 to 1955, widened the outlook, revealing much
that had hitherto remained obscure and unknown. This work unfolded
many of the constituent elements of this study in proper perspective and
served to give a new turn to the subject and its treatment.
The implications of the study are practically so inexhaustible that none
can claim to be able to say the last word. But within the limitations
imposed by the very nature of the data, no effort has been spared to
present a co-ordinated account of the wider aspects of the relations over
the ages between India and Ceylon.
The study has posed its own problems in the presentation. Con-
with the objectives kept prominently in view, it covers within the
sistently

bounds of a short monograph as illustrative a range as possible of the basic

factors of Indo-Ceylonese relations against their historical background.
Being so conceived, the study will hardly lend itself to too precise
an
analysis—the main components of the subject often merging into
one
another.
viii PREFACE

The corrdatiom I have attempted to study are too manifold to be set

forth exhaustively within the limits of this work. Nevertheless a few,
more noteworthy, have been dealt with, specially in the later chapters.
The scope of the work is more than a social and cultural analysis of a
tad and its people; it is rather a preliminary investigation into the funda-
mental connections, animated by facts of geography and history, in the
lives of the peoples of two lands who have been in intimate social and
cultural relationship.

This book underlines culture. Its focus is on social and cultural

relations; merely political relations are outside its scope. Yet political
relations also have obviously a positive contribution to the totality of the
picture of Indo-Ceyloncse relationship.
India’s association with Ceylon was in the past of the closest character.
That this attitude of positive friendliness will continue to rule the
relations between the two neighbouring lands in the years ahead is my
deepest conviction, and it is as a humble contribution to serve this end
that I dedicate this book to the peoples of both India and Ceylon.
I fervently hope that the book will be acceptable to them as a cultural
mk-tnmwire and commend itself to those great minds of Ceylon and
India who believe in the continuance of reciprocal friendly relations.
An earnest of this was manifest in the inauguration on November 3, 1954,
by His Excellency Sri C. C. Desai, High Commissioner for India
in
Ceylon, of the Indo-Ceylonese Friendship Society with
Sir Albert
Peirjs, A1P ., as its president with a governing body representative of
the people.
The world is on the threshold of great expectations;
it is in a state of
transition, as were, trying to reconcile differences and forge links
it

between lands and peoples to usher in an era

of world-wide under-
standing and friendliness. In the context of a changing world, studies
such as are herein instituted may have
an increasing part to play in the
promotion of world peace and national as well as
international goodwill.

Madras
M. D. RAGHAVAN
October 19§S
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am grateful to the Indian Council for Cultural Relations for
sponsoring this work as part of the programme of publications dealing
with India’s relations with other countries.
Authorities and sources are cited at appropriate places in the body
of the book. On a number of points in Sinhalese culture: “Sinhalese
Language and literature,” Chapter 9; the translation of a verse from
Perakumha Sirita, extracted in Chapter 4; the date of the Vessantara Jataka
Manuscript, referred to in Chapter 13, “Society and the Social Complex”;
the interpretation of the terms, Elu, I lam and Uangama (Appendix I) and
the probable date of the Sinhalese manuscript, Malala Kathava (Appendix
II), I am indebted to Mr. C. M. Austin De Silva, Ethnologist, National
museums, Ceylon for much assistance. It was in the course of a talk
with him that I gained my first acquaintance of the manuscript
Malala
Kathava. This in time led to an appreciation of
its contents and its
eventual translation,herein appended with acknowledgments to the
Director, National Museums, Ceylon. The translation does credit to
Mr. C. A. Wijesekhara to whom I offer my thanks,
I am particularly grateful to the Hon’ble Mr. R. S. Pelpola, M.P.,
for affording me facilities for my field work on the traditions of the Angam
(Chapter 12) round about Gampola.
Some parts of this book have featured previously in the Indian
and
Ceylonese Press. In the Hindu Weekly Magazine appeared articles-
“Reminiscences of Sita in Lanka”; “The Veddah, the Ceylon Adivasi”-
*
and ‘The High Gods of Ceylon”, the last in the
issue of June 21, 1959
The story of Sita in Lanka has also appeared in brief in my recent book
Ceylon, a pictorial survey of the peoples and
arts.
A series of three papers was
contributed to the Times of Ceylon
April 1958: ‘The Growth of the
Tamil in Ceylon”; “What Tamil has
contributed to Ceylon”; and “Contribution
of the Tamil to Music and
Dance Revealed.”
In the Ceylon Daily News of October 2, 1959 appeared a historical
analysis of the
Language and Literature of the Sinhalese.”
Acknowledgments are due to the Commissioner
of Archaeology
Ceylon, for departmental
photographs of the sculptures, frescoes
and
eprodoced: deluding the illustration
! in Plate XI, of the figure
of Tara; for this, as for the text figure
of the Dancing Goddess, reproduced
 ,

X ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

from i drawing of the carving on ivory combs, on picture post cards at the
Colombo National Museum, and the text drawing of the styles of hair-
knots, inscribed in the palm-leaf manuscript of the Vessantara Jataka in
the collections of the Colombo Museum Library, I tender my acknow-
ledgments to the Director, National Museums, Ceylon; and to the Ceylon
Government Tourists Bureau for the illustration of a Ves Dancer, in
Plate XXII.
For the photograph of the Veddahs I am obliged to Dr. R. L. Spittel.
I am greatly indebted to these several artists for the fine pen and ink
sketches reproduced in the text figures: to Mr. T. L. P. Manjusri, the
reputed Sinhalese artist, for the drawings of the Kandyan dress styles,
the ohoriya and lama sari and the styles of hair-knot; to Mr. P. Narayanan,
Retired Chief Artist, Indian Agricultural Institute, New Delhi, for
the drawing of the Frieze of Dancers, Gadaladeniya Temple (Text
Fig. I); to Mr. Prabhat Wijesekhara of the Colombo Museum, for
the figure of the Dancing Goddess on ivory combs; and to Mr. M. P.
Sandanandan for the drawing of the kinds ( kendiya ), the household and
ceremonial vessel of Malabar and Ceylon (Text Fig. 6), the plan of the
—
nalupura the traditional “four-in-one” house of Malabar (Text Fig.
7),
and the drawing of the Todu, Jaffna jewellery.
Mr. R. C. De S. Manukulasooriya has rendered much help in citations
to literature published in Ceylon, and in the preparation
of the biblio-
graphy. I thank him for his collaboration.
I he long time over which the book has been maturing
enabled me to
give it the necessary finishing touches in
the light of the happy suggestions
received from friendly critics who were good enough
to go through the
script. I am specially thankful to Mr. Y. D, Gundeviya, High
Commissioner for India in Ceylon, 1957 to 1960; Mr. M.
S. Sethi, Mr.
A. K. Damodaran, Mr. U. Shankunny and Sir
Kanthiah Vaithianathan
for their perusal of the script and their kind
advice and suggestions. To
Dt. S, Dutt, I am obliged for the care and attention
bestowed in editing
the script on behalf of the Indian Council for
Cultural Relations.
Words, fail adequately to express my gratefulness
to Prof. Humayun
Kabir, Minister for Scientific Research
and Cultural Affairs, for his
gracious and stimulating Foreword
which bespeaks his deep appreciation
of the importance of studies in social and
cultural relations to international

M. D. R.
 CONTENTS
Foreword

Preface

I, Lanka of the Ramayana 1

Ceylon and Her Immigrants 9

II.

Caste in the Sinhalese Social System 23

III.

rv. The Indian Period of Ceylonese History 32

V. Sinhalese Royalty and the Culture of the Court 46

VI. The Tamil in Ceylon 50

VII. The Gods of Ceylon 62

VIII. The Bond of Buddhism with India

(i) The Vesak and the Poson 69
Hi) The Tooth Relic 72

(iii) The Sacred Relics of Sanchi 73

(iv) Buddhism in South India 75
IX. The Language and Literature of the Sinhalese 80
X. Art and Architecture 88
XI. Dance in Ceylon : Sinhala Natyam 107
XII. The Angam 133
XIII. Society and the Social Complex 140
XIV. The Sinhalese New Year’s Day 154
XV. Magic, Astrology and Folk Religion 160
XVI. Jaffna Laws and Customs 166

Appendices

1. The Terms: Elu} Ham and lllangama 173

2. —
Malala Kathava The Story of the Seven
Malabar Princes 175

Bibliography 182

Index 191
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Piatt Description Text Reference

Fremtitpieot The Toluvil Buddha, Chap. X. Page 93

Anuradhapura
1. Fig. i. SiteUya~-The Cascading Chap. I. Page 3
Brook
Fig. ii A Veddah Family Chap. II. Page 4
Fig. L Temple of Isurumuniya, Chap. VI. Page 57
Anuradhapura
Fig. ii Nalattda Gedige
3. Fig. i- The Horse vahana of Chap” VII. Page 64
Aiyanar
F%. ii. Man and Horse, a rode- Chap. X. Page 90
sculpture at Isurumuniya
4. Fig. i. The Vmadage,
Pollonaruwa
Fig, ii. The Chap. X. Page 89
Vahnlkade, Kantaka
Cetiya, Mihintale
5. Fig. L The Thuparama Temple,'
Pollonaruwa
Hg. ii Panel of Lovers, Isuru- Chap. X. Page 90

tnuniya
6» Fig. i. & H. Elephants in Isuru- Chap. X. Page 91
mimiya Sculpture
7. Fig. i. The embellished flight Chap. X. Page 91
of step.®, Anuradhapura
The moonstone at Chap. X. Page 91
Queens Pavilion, Anu-
radhapura
8. Fig. The
1,
Avukana Buddha, i

Anuradhapura
Hg.il The Buddha at Abhya-
f
Chap. X. Page 93
giri Dagoba, Anu- 1

radhapura
Fig. HI The rock-sculpture at Chap. X. Page 94
Potgul Vihara, Pollona-
ruwa
 Xlii
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Description Text Reference

Plate

9& 10. The Gal Vihara Group

Fig. L The Buddha seated on
a Vajrasana
The seated Buddha l Chap. X. Page 94
Fig. iL
with a divinityon
j

cither side
j

10. Fig. i. Grief-stricken Ananda j

Fig iL.
The recumbent Buddha )

Hg.L Bodhisattva Maitreya Chap. X. Page 96

11 .
Pig. IL Tara, consort of Avalo- Chap. X. Page 96
kiteswara
12. New Bronze finds at \

Poll&naruwa
Fig. i. Nataraja V Chap. X. Page 98
Fig. ii. Parvati
Fig. iii. Ganesa '

13. Fig. i. The Sigiriya Frescos Chap. X. Page 100

Fig. a The Hindgala Frescos Chap. X. Page 101
14. Fig. i. Bronze find from Dedi- Chap. XI. Page 112
—
gama dancing figure
Fig. ii. A Ves dancer Chap. XI. Page 122
15. Fig. i. Dancing woman a wood-— Chap. XI. Page 111
carving from the
Rmbekkc Devalaya
Fig. a Dance Sculptures, Yapa- Chap. XI. Page 110
huwa
16. Kolam — the masked folk
dance of South Ceylon
Fig. 1. The Hewaralas Chap. XI. Page 130
|
Fig. ii. Ana Bexa r Sc 137
Fig. Iii. The King and Queen '
 i

i
AID TO PRONUNCIATION
Pages Pages
CHAPTER I CHAPTER IX
1 Footnote Siteliya 82 Visuddhj-marga
? Earn Sannaya
„ Ha (n)-nadu 83 dalada
„ Elu 84 digge netuma
87 podu
CHAPTER II vidu
19, 20 Salagama
20 Kotte CHAPTER X
„ Karava 95 Jnana mudra
102 pitam
CHAPTER III 102 yagnopavita
Durava
Hetti CHAPTER XI
ape jatiya 107 Santiyam
107 Karaijas
CHAPTER IV 121 Digge'
poya 124 Vapnarn
Yalpana Vaipava 128 male rajurruvo
Malai
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER VI 141 Kuruppu mulla
Vellak » Achchige'
Kaivettu
141, v—
o
143 tatawad
Gedige'
146 Ohoriya
CHAPTER VII « lama sariya
j> mantha hc^e
£ Kapuralas 149 kaijija kuchiyar
Kattidiyais )) mala
Sis
ValU Malai 150 gedi malaya
3* Art keliya bandi valalu.
Abhivadetva" AmmS
Anjalm Pana- 3> Amine
metva 152 pramaqa dura
Namaska’retva"
>3 Hoo pad.
 AID TO PRONUNCIATION

Pages Pages

CHAPTER XIV CHAPTER XVI

153 Noga gate' 165 tavazhi

pupya Kala tarawad
154 Kaiji tayi
Kevun 168 tocja (todu)
154 Ola 169 tali kei;tu

156 Kayyittam kalyanam

170 nalupura
33 valauva
CHAPTER XV 33 vetri

160 pena kima

APPENDIX I
kalam
Elu
*
Ilam
161 epa nula 1

163 ou APPENDIX II

164 aturaya Malala Kathava

 ABBREVIATIONS

A.S.C. Archaeological Survey of Ceylon

CH.Q, Ceylon Historical Quarterly
C.J.Sc. Ceylon Journal of Science
Cul. Culavamsa
E.Z. Epigraphia Zeylanica
H.S.P. Hakluyt Society’s Publication
J.R.A.S. (C.B) Journal of the Ceylon Branch of the Royal
Asiatic Society

Mata. Mahavamsa
M.L.R. Monthly Literary Register
S.Z. Spolia Zeylanica

T.R.A.S, Transactions, Royal Asiatic Society

TRANSLITERATION CHART

VOWELS:

3T (a) STT (a) f (i) f (i) 3 (u) 3! (u) (r)

^ (1)
tr (e) t* (ai)

(o) sft (au)

CONSONANTS;

* 00 * 0*) n (g) ft (gh) T. (n) * (c) e (ch) er (j) f (jh)

(«) * (0 ® (th) s (d) « (dh) «r (n) a (t) ft (th) * (d) *r (dh)

’T (ft) 1 (p) <5 (ph) ft (b) ft (bit) ft (m) ft (y) X (r) <3 (1) ft (v)

I (hj (s) ft (s) a (s)

*

ANUSARA: — (m); ANUNASIKA — (m); VISARGA : (hj

 I

LANKA OF THE RAMAYANA

The opinion of some scholars notwithstanding, thYt the Lanka of

Ravana lies submerged in the sea, Ceylon is full of reminiscences which
unmistakably link scenes and stories with Ravana and his days. All over
the central uplands of Ceylon, amid the gorgeous setting of thickly wooded
hills and glorious valleys, there are spots intimately associated with stories
of Ravana and his deeds and of Sita and her sojourn in Lanka. They
suggest irresistibly the identity of Ravana’s Lanka with the island of
Ceylon.
One of these spots is the Ravana Ella Cave. Traditions relating to the
Cave are rife all over the highlands of the district of Bandarawela.
Mystery surrounds the Cave; folk tale has it that it is the place “where
elephants go to die.” The Cave is difficult of access and may have been
an ancient stronghold, supposed to have had a secret passage to Sita Eliya,
and legend names it as the last retreat of Ravana. Sita Eliya 1 is an exten-
sive plain spreadbeyond it. Opposite the Ella Resthouse is the Ella Pass,
up the zig-zag paths of which one climbs until the rocky walls of the
pass
gradually and Ravana’s Cave comes to view amidst primeval
close in
geologic formations, mountainous and towering.
About a mile away is the Ravana Ella, “Ravana’s waterfall,”
with a
drop of 90 flowing away into the valley below. With the heavy
feet,
rains that fall during six months of the year, much of the Cave floor
is
damp. Advancing inside, the roof of the Cave closes in, and the crown
of
the visitor’s head grazes the roof. The tradition of the secret passage,
however, stands discredited, recent explorations
of the Cave showing no
4
way out. Whether a secret passage from it once existed or not, Sita

Sk
,. L?t
iy ;
ate f
?r
11
?TTtd rl
Siteliya, literally, the plain
e lfe of Slta As °P en
of Sita or open spaces
spaces have brighter light, the word
W°? ^ a ?
has acquired the l
alternate
'

meaning of a “well-lit” plain.

b y Der ™yagal a?.Director, National Museums,
nave shown Ceylon,
that the Cave was in the past
ages occupied bv iunele folk
SeCti ° n of human
bone and a left
fr °ntal
motar tooth. From the hammer ,
stones and pebbles pitted on one or hnth
1 13 rnllse d that the Cave-dwellers
,,^ were tribes of the Stone Age
Cultur A 1116 PrehiSt0ry ° f Ceylon "Spolia ZcylanZ,
Vot^P^Xp^st).
 .

Eliya holds the key to the story of the days of Ravana more than any other
place in Ceylon. Legend has it that it was here that Sita passed her days
of melancholy sojourn in the island in captivity in the palace of

Ravana.
It is a charmingly undulating plain, fringed with thickly wooded

ranges of hills, variegated with picturesque water-falls, and silvery rivulets

rushing down the hill-sides, dotted with rhododendron bushes tipped with
dusters of crimson flowers. Beyond are steep mountain ramparts with
thickly wooded tops, haunts of the leopard and the sambur. The scene
is a vast amphitheatre of hills and dales and if the classic Trikuta Mount
a the
of the Ramayana is anywhere in Ceylon, it is here in glorious city of

Ravana with its fortresses, its lovely groves and terraced gardens to which
the visitors’ fancy is led back by the nearby Hakgalla Gardens, with their
charming wooded glades cleverly redaimed and fashioned by the hand of
man. The site, commanding as it does the natural approaches to the
valleys on all the four sides, was ideal for the Rakshasa King, Ravana,
to choose for his fortified mountain capital.

There is a reference in the Ramayana* to “little bells suspended from

trees that make music in the breeze,” a contraption which may be found
in various forms, distributed all over the hilly parts of Ceylon today,
The simplest is the bambaraya, meaning a “top,” that is a single-

noduled hollow reed within which a short upright stem goes on turning
round with two branch-like thin flat wooden blades set oblique on either
side. This reed is tied to the top-branches of trees adding a man-made
feature to the landscape and, the blades turn in the wind, a whirring sound
is heard. Slow at first, the sound gains in intensity as the wind grows
stronger. Sometimes a small reed-whistle is attached on either side of the
blades ami the blowing wind automatically works the whistles producing
a characteristic whistling note.
These humble appliances serve the purpose today of showing the
direction of the wind and are also a device to scare away crows and other
birds from vegetable and grain plots. What were the remote first begin-
nings of these rustic instruments of ‘Aeolian’ music? Does the reference

3. The keetid te that there w*j a trial of strength between Varuna and Vasuki.
VarHjM triumphed to such an extent that three of the three-thousand peaks of
tae Mot Mountain broke asunder and were thrown into the sea. These
wm rnw^Mmh known as the "Trikuta"., the three peaks. On the top of the
omtm peak was built the Island of Lanka by Viswakarma.
C: Ramayma, Bombay, 1957, p. 221
 3

in the Ramay ana help us to trace them bach to the days of Ravana? We
may well pause to wonder over the question.
The modem trunk road between Nuwara Eliya and the Uva Valley
below runs between Sita Amman Kovil, a small shrine which has sprung
up in the past few decades with the Hakgalla Gardens in the vicinity,,

an area of entrancing scenic beauty, which may well have been a

cross-section of the Asoka Vatia where Sita is said to have spent her
days of captivity guarded by Rakshasis. 6
It is locally held that the best part of Asoka Vana must ever elude

the search of man, though it is believed that it might be in the immediate

vicinity of Hakgalla Gardens. Here the trees are laden with fruits, their
branches bending with the weight of luscious oranges and other fruits.
It is part of the tradition that while one may eat his fill there, one may not

take away any with him, which seems to indicate that the ancients knew
the spot and enjoyed the fruits grown there.
The Sita Amman Kovil® of today is
humble tribute in perishable brick
a
and mortar to the memory of the immortal
Sita. But a memorial for all
time is the picturesque brook rushing by with a local reputation as Sita’s.
favourite haunt (Plate 1, Fig. i). We may well call up to imagination Sita
sitting pensively on the banks of this rivulet or resorting to the coot
refreshing waters of the sheltered cove for her morning bath and
ablutions. Descending the flight of steps from the high road to the Sita
Amman Kovil below, the spreading rocks at the feet tempt one to walk
and watch. In front are the waters gushing down the hill-side in many
a pretty eddy and cascade. Then one can watch the waters disappearing
down a hole, a foot or more across, to emerge in a sheltered
and
shady pool at the other end, flowing in a subterranean, course over a
distance of about fifty feet.
Here is something one may have missed on an earlier
cealed channel flowing perennially underneath without
visit, —a con-
ever being blocked
or obstructed by boulders or pebbles brought
down by the strong current.
5. The parched condition and the greyish tinge of the

cC onkrpuLofS^captivTtr^^" by ^
thick mantle of mann
*** tD tie effect of Sita ’ s
Spo^ghdng tocal traditions centering round Sita, the
shrine owes its existence
th0U hL ° f thc P rc$ dl og priest, Siva
if f»r ^ who
labar, i more than five j Mayam Sankara Swam!
decades ago founded this little Kovil
the stored precincts of what was hi
reputedly the Asoka Vana of the
Ramalan^
aval'ssdsiiisr of "*” ***»£%££.
 4

So even is the flow that a flower dropped at one end may reappear at the

other,—a phenomenon by which the simple superstitious people of the

locality judge their fortune.

The Ramayana is an epic poem in which fact and fantasy are inextric-
ably interwoven into a story of immense human and cultural interest. Its
bask theme is the conquest of Lanka by Rama. It is an epic which is
believed by scholars to be later in origin than the Mahabharata, and it is
possible that its basic theme of the conquest of Lanka was conceived
sometimes between 1000 B.C. and 500 B.C. In terms of historical chro-
nology, this time verges on the proto-historic, before the dawn of history.
Whether the epic theme is purely mythical or the reminiscence of some
primitive movement on the part of the Aryan settlers in India to annex
the island at the southern tip to the main country of Bharatavarsha is a
question difficult to answer. But Ravana, though conceived as a Rakshasa
(demon), figures in the Ramayana as a human personage as much as his
victor —Rama.
References to Lanka abound in the legends and traditions narrated in
the Ramayana.
Following is the story in brief outline of Ravana and his tribe as told
in the Ramayana:
Kuvera, son of Vishravas, acquired such great merit by his ascetism
thatBrahma was pleased and elevated him as the God of Riches and, along
with Yama, Indra and Vanina appointed him as one of the four Lakapdas
or guardians of the world.
Kuvera was given possession of Lanka, which
had been by Viswakarma for the residence of the Rakshasas. But
built
the Rakshasas grew so arrogant and insolent that they defied the gods
who appealed to Siva and Vishnu for protection. So Vishnu drove them
oat of Lanka, and the Rakshasas had to take refuge in Patalaloka.
Somali, one of the exiled Rakshasas, designing to recover their lost
possession, persuaded his daughter to attend on the ascetic Vishravas
whose s® Kuvera had once been established in Lanka. The ascetic,
agreeing to her request nevertheless pointed out that her offspring would
fjve rise only to a generation of Rakshasas. Ravana was her firstborn,
followed by other three children Kumbhakama, Surpanakha (daughter)
md Vibhishana. The last, though a Rakshasa by birth, followed the
fwtsteps of his ascetic father and grew righteous in his ways. Ravana,
jealous of Kuvera, planned to excel him in glory. By dint of austere
penance, he wrested a boon from Brahma that he would be king of Lanka,
 5

invincible against gods and demons. Vibhishana’s request to Brahma

was befitting his character, for he only asked for the boon that hismind
be concentrated on righteousness. Brahma was so pleased that he confer-
red on him the boon of immortality. When Kumbhakarna’s turn came,
Saraswati, it is fabled, so confounded him that he asked for the boon that
he might sleep continuously for years.
The Rakshasas came trooping to Lanka to pay homage to their
new king Ravana. They prompted him to eject Kuvera and make Lanka
his own domain. Kuvera, rather than fight his half-brother, agreed to
evacuate Lanka and make his way to Kailas with his wives and children.
Ravana took Mandodari to wife. Their son was Meghanada, so called from
his roar like thunder on the day he was born. Ravana entrenched himself

as Lord of Lanka, destroying Devarshis, Yaks has and Gandharvas. Ravana

in his insolence even defied Siva but, repenting later, hymns

sang of praise
to Siva, who was so pleased at his devotion that he made the gift of a
celestial weapon (Sivastra) to him. Ravana and his hosts persisted in
their wicked exploits. They plotted to carry off to Lanka the daughters
of royal saints, gods and Danavas. Ravana had the boldness to attack
the gods in their celestial domain.After a great battle Indra was taken
captiveby Meghanada, Ravana’s son, who carried him off to Lanka.
Brahma had to intervene to rescue Indra. Because Meghanada had
triumphed over Indra, he gained the name, Indrajit.
Ravana’s wickedness came to a climax with the abduction of Sita,.
Rama’s wife, who was taken to Lanka by the abductor and kept a close
captive in Asaka Vatia in the precincts of his palace, watched
over by
Rakshasis. Retribution followed. Rama at the head of his ‘monkey
hordes’ quickly invaded Lanka.
The Ramayana describes the magnificence of Ravana’s palace and gives
a glimpse of devotional activities within.“Vibhishana as he enters the
king s palace hears Brahmins versed in Vedas, chanting
sacred and holy
verses, worshipping with vessels full of curds,
clarified butter, flowers
and fried paddy.”
He pleads with Ravana, beseeching him to restore Sita toRama and
make amends for the grievous sin of Ravana’s act. He enlarges on Rama’s
great moral strength and prowess in arms.
Indrajit, however, twits
Vibhishana with cowardice, vaunting about his own
courage in having
taken Indra captive. Ravana joins in denouncing
Vibhishana as a disgrace
to the family.
 6

four of his companions

Vibhishana leaves the assembly accompanied by
and sets off to meet Rama and he deserts. He gives a
across the sea
and the military strength of Lanka. Rama
description of the situation
thereupon consecrates Vibhishana as King of Lanka in place of Ravana
of Viswakarma,
and warmly embraces him as an ally. Helped by Nala, son
Rama starts to build a bridge across the strait (called Palk’s Strait now)
which divides Lanka from India. Mountains are tom off and trees taken
by bit completed, looking like
by the roots, and the bridge is bit

“themUky way in the firmament”. India and Ceylon are connected by a

causeway, “spacious, skilfully constructed, graceful, well-paved and

nicely finished”, poetically pictured as the “line of parting of the

hair on the Ocean’s head”.

A small elevated islet, popularly known today as the “Bouna Vista"
or the Beautiful View, noted for its many grottos and contours, with lovely
groves of trees, in the vicinity of Galle harbour, is traditionally believed

to be the site of the ‘hill of herbs’ which Hanuman is said to have

brought from the Himalayas to revive Rama and Lakshmana who lay
unconscious on the battle-field. Its Sinhalese name is Roomassala,

derived, it is supposed, from Ramasala, the resting-place of Rama,

On the Colombo-Ratnapura road, 25 miles from Colombo, is the pretty
village of Sitawaka, on either side of the river of the same name. Tradi-

tion links this place with the site where Indrajit practised the magical
7
devices whereby he produced a Maya Sita (Illusory figure of Sita) and
conducted her in a chariot before'the Vanara (Monkey) army of Rama and
staged killing her.
Ravana was vanquished and killed in the closing phase of the struggle
and Vibhishana, already consecrated by Rama as King of Lanka, abandon-
ed Ravana’s capital and went to reside at Kalyanapura (Kelaniya), now a
picturesque village on the bank of a river of the same name, on the out-
skirtsof Colombo. Buddhist tradition associates the place with the
Buddha’s second visit to Lanka when he settled a quarrel between two
waning Naga brother princes. The bejewelled throne which was the
bone of contention between them was gifted to the Buddha. Vibhishana’s
Shrine now adjoins the Buddhist Vihare at Kelaniya. It has been rightly
said: “If you are unable to visit any other place in Ceylon, visit

Kelaniya”.

7. Pridham: Ceylon and Its Dependencies, 1849, Vol. 1, Footnote 1, p. 25.

 7

Postscript

The Sadharma Lankavatara Sutra (Sutra of the Entrance of the Good

Doctrine into Lanka) represents Ravana as a good Buddhist layman.
The Lankavatara Sutra is one of the principal Mahayana Texts.
That Ravana has Lanka is evident
a place in the traditional culture of
from the halo of reputation in Ceylon round his name as a “Vaidya Siro-
mani”. Two medical works attributed to him are Arka Prakasika
and Kumara Tantrcwt. Arka Prakasika ends with the line “Iti Sri
Lankadhipati, Vaidya Siromani Ravana Krit Arka Prakasika”. Ravana
is reputed to have been present at an Ayurvedic Conference at Himalaya
—
with Pulastya, Narada and Asita, as Charaka states, “Pulastyo Narado-
Satahia”. Ravana is reputed to be the author of Sivatandava Stotram in
Brahma Stctra Ratnakaram.
Despite the traditional name, Lanka for Ceylon, there are several
variants of the name. They were given by different nations at different
ages of history.
Adjacent to South India and to Tamilnad, it is not surprising that the
Tamil-inspired names make an impressive Such are the names
list.

Ilam, Jla {n)-nadu, Ilankai, Elu, Hela, Illanara, Tiru Ila-nadu the 'sacred
,
land of Ceylon,’ and others. Ilam is the Dravidian form of Pali Sinhala,
which in its turn is closely related to the early S inhal ese Elu or Helu.
In the Grahasamhita by Varamihira (seventh century A.D.) both the
names Lanka and Simhala occur as kingdoms to the South of India. Pali
and Sanskrit literature generally distinguish
Lanka and Simhaladwipa
or Tampapanni as separate countries. In the Pali Attakatha, Ceylon
is throughout referred to as Simhaladwipa or
Tampapanni. Simhaladwipa
seems to have been the remnant of Lanka in the ages that followed
the
submergence of parts of it in the waters of the sea; what was left
of the
more extensive dominions of Ravana’ s Lanka. The evidence
amply
sustains the propriety of such a conclusion. Some of the cultural data
are marshalled by Ananda W. P. Guruge in the course of a ''Note on
Ravana’s Lanka in The New Lanka ” Vol. V, No. 1: “Vibhishana is
the tutelary deity of Relamya. In the Mahamayuri
a magical text of the
,

Mahayana Buddhists, he is named Vibhishana Tamrapanyam”

“Vibhi-
shana the deity of Ceylon” (Sylvian Levi, Journal Asiatique
1915, p.33).
The name Lanka is retained in the name of the
city of Lankapura,
peopled by the Yakkahs at the time Vijaya entered
Ceylon (543 B.C).„
 a

Traditions recorded in the Rqjavaliya date the Rama-Ravana Yuddha as

having taken place 1884 years before the Buddha, a calculation which gives
us 1301 B.C. as the date of the war. The Rqjavaliya
also speaks of the
submerged by the sea”.
traditions of the castle of Ravana, “later
“Among other links in the citation in two recensions of the epic is
Malaya, a name which recalls the traditional name of the central hill
country of Ceylon. Sugriva’s reference in the Ramayana to ‘an island
of a hundred yojanas in the ocean to the South’ makes it obvious that
Lanka is the island envisaged, the only island, which agrees with the
geographical setting as described in the epic.”
The Note concludes with these observations on “The Ceityaprasadas
of RavanYs Lanka: ‘Besides, the reference to Cetiyaprasadas of Lanka,
reminiscent of the peculiar architectural design of the early Buddhist
monuments of Ceylon, cannot be dismissed as of no significance and must
be considered as throwing light on the relationship between Ceylon and
Havana’s Lanka. These Cetiyaprasadas of Ravana’s city are throughout
distinguished from the Cetiyas of Northern India. The findings of the
Archaeological Department of Ceylon seem to shed light on this subject.
A number of pillars around the earliest stupa or Cetiya of Ceylon, the
Tuparama of Anuradhapura, indicate that there was a mansion over the
Ceitya in the form of a vata-da-ge, a common structure in the Buddhistic
architecture of Ceylon”.
 d ^

II

CEYLON AND HER IMMIGRANTS

Prehistory presents to us the picture of a migratory human society,

of which “Movement” in one word was the urge and ruling principle.
No place was out of bounds to early man and no plan or programme
regulated or directed his steps.
He had no conscious destination and he paused in his migrations
wherever the conditions seemed favourable to settled life. In time,
he took roots in a new soil and raised a growing family dependent on
him. This general picture of society in its first formative phase is true
of Ceylon as of other lands. Hence evolved in course of ages a variegated
social landscape differing in structure and composition.
Pressure of population and that of economic factors, the twin forces
which moved man out of his early setting, are still dominant in the story
of man. But a host of other influences has added up along with the march
of society from primitive conditions to civilization. Trade relations,
war and conquest, religious expansion and missionary enterprise are
some
of themany forces which have changed and continue to change the social
landscape.
Vijaya s arrival in Lanka in c. 543 B.C. is a convenient point from
which to Hew the heterogenous growth of society in Ceylon.
The story of ancient Ceylon
is largely a complex of myths
and legends.
Much of these have been laid under contribution
by the author of the
Mahavamsa who presents an account of the first
colonisation of the Island
from rndia.
In Chapter VI of the Mahavamsa is given the legend of Vijaya, the
traditional leader of the
wave of Aryan colonists to reach Ceylon
first
and founder of Sinhalese
monarchy. It is thus summarised
by L.D
Barnett in the Cambridge
History of Ceylon
a
number of late 77
numhc^nt
a (VI
histories
-
IH) 3nd
’

7
Di?
and popular ballads agree more
am
(IX), with which a

J^n^ory. According , toghtfr of „

or less tell

R
" “
See

9
 10

(Bengal) and a Princess of Kalinga (Orissa) was carried away by a lion,

who begot on her a son, Sihabahu (lion-arm) and a daughter Sihasivalli
(in Sinhalese ballads, Simhavalli). After slaying his father, Sihabahu
2
reigned at Sihapura (Lion’s Town) in Lala (Lata, i.e, Gujarat ). His
son Vijaya, banished for his lawlessness, departed from Sihapura with a
band of adventurers and sailed southward. After stopping at Supparaka
(Surparaka, modem Sopara, in the Thana District, Bombay Presidency),
be continued his voyage to Ceylon, where he arrived very shortly before
the death of Gautama Buddha, who in a prophetic vision had learned of
his coming and commended him to the care of the God Sakka (Sakra

or Indra). Sihabahu found the island in the possession of Yakkahs or

fairies. Having overcome the wiles of the Yakkha Princess Kuvanna
(in Sinhalese Ruveni), he took her to wife and drove away her kinsmen.
When he had established himself, he repudiated her and his children by
her, who became the ancestors of the Pulinda tribes of the interior, in order
to marry a daughter of the Pandyan King of Madura, and he reigned for
38 years (c. 483-445 B.C.) with much righteousness in the town of

2. The story reads very much like the myths of the typically totemistic primitive
Australian tribes such as the Arunta of Central Australia. “In the earliest
stages of the Aicbera group of the Arunta, there was no transformation into
human beings”. When finally they assumed human form, the individuals
became intimately associated with the particular animal or plant which
became the token of the tribe. Spencer and Gillen’s The Arunta, 1927.
Vol. I,p. 308.
This immigration to Ceylon, the scene of the landing of Vijaya with
his army and fleets, and his installation, is pictorially represented in the Ajanta
Frescoes, “Simhala Avadana”, thus described by Griffiths: "On
the left of the picture issuing from a gateway is a chief on his great elephant,
with a bow in hand and two minor chiefs likewise on elephants, each shad-
owed by an umbrella. They are accompanied bv a retinue of foot soldiers
some of whom bear banners and spears and others, swords and shields.
The drivers of the elephants with goads in their hands are seated in the
usual manner on the necks of the animals. Sheaves of arrows are attached to
the aides of the howdahs._ The men are dressed in tightly-fitting shortsleeved
jackets and loin cloths with the long ends hanging behind in folds. Below,
four soldiers cm horseback with spears are in a boat and to the right are repre-
sented again the group on their elephants, also in boats, engaged in battle as
the. principal figures have just discharged their arrows. The elephants sway
their trunk.* above as. is their wont when excited. The near one is shown
m the act of trumpeting and the swing of his bell indicates motion.”
(Griffith'!
: The Paintings ft the Cave-temples of Ajanta, Vol. I, p. 38, Plate
W. T&s: picture is reproduced in H. W. Codrington’s A Short History of
Ceyim. 1947, fig. 2.)
“Rate 70 shows that landing has been effected. A fierce combat is
going on between the attacking force and the inhabitants of the country
who are all female demons, with flowing light coloured hair, long curved
teeth and pendant breasts”.
 .

11

Tambapanni, which he had founded. Anuradhapura, Upatissagama,

Vijitagama, Uruvela, and Ujjaini
were founded by his followers.
“This tale seems to contain the following nucleus of fact: There
are

two streams of immigration celebrated in the earliest legends.

apparently
The which probably was mainly Dravidian, came from Orissa and
first,

perhaps Southern Bengal; the second, mainly Aryan, started from Sihapura
in Lata, possibly modern Sihor, in Kathiawar, and
Sopara. The latter
band belonged to the Simhalas (Sihalas) or the Lion tribe, and it was
probably they who imposed their Aryan tongue on Ceylon. At any rate,
they gave to their new home the name of Simhaladvipa (in Pali Sihaladipd),
whence are derived all its later designations, the Arabic Sarandib , the
Portuguese Ceilao , and our Ceylon. Popular imagination combined the
two movements by giving the eponymous Sihabahu a home on both sides
of India, and so the legend shaped itself into its classical form.”
The event as set forth in the Mahavamsa, was not of the nature of
a planned colonisation. The wind, “blowing where it listeth”, drove
Vijaya and his men to the shores of Lanka.
The Island was not uninhabited. There is all the evidence of a
vigorous indigenous population. The day Vijaya landed, “as the night
went, he heard voice of music and singing”. It was the festival of the
wedding of the daughter of a Yakkah chief. “And for the wedding,
there is high festival lasting seven days” ( Maha Ch. VII, 30-35). Kuveni,
the Yakkah princess, was sitting spinning at the foot of a tree, when, being
sufficiently human, feminine and responded warmly to the
alluring, she
romantic advances of Vijaya. Such magic webs, however spun round
the story of the landing of Vijaya and the personality of Kuveni have no
relation to facts of history.
Lankapura and Sirivattu (Sirisavattu) are mentioned in the legends
as the two main centres of Yakkah life. Nothing was more plausible than
to picture Lanka as the abode of Yakkahs and to draw a veil of magic over
the encounter of Vijaya and the Yakkahs, if the legends had really followed
the cue of the Ramayana epic. Whatever may have been the forms or
the characters of the Yakkahs and Nagas as we find them in the legends,
we may accept them as representing the real, indigenous peoples of Lanka.
Both are spoken of in connection with the Buddha’s visits
celebrated in
the traditions of Lanka and they presumably co-existed.
Of the Naga in Ceylon, nothing more is heard except in connection
with the Buddha’s visits, but the Yakkah tradition lingered. In the
 12

planning of the city of Anuradhapura by King Pandukabaya (377-30?

B.C.), two Yakkah princes Kalavela and
Cittaraja figure prominently.

He settled Kalavela on the east of the city and Cittaraja to the south.
“On festival days, the king sat with Cittaraja beside him on a seat of equal
height.” (Maha Ch. X, 84-88). This obviously reflects his friendly
.

approach to a fallen “the better part of valour.” It is a pointer too

foe,

to the dignity and status of the Yakkah.

Both the Yakkah and the Naga have correlations in Indian legends.
Among the Jataka stories, the Valahasa Jataka refers to Lanka as Tamba-
paani, an island of Yakshinis of the town of Sirisavattu, who entice ship-
wrecked traders to their homes. Figures of Yakshinis flank the Northern
gateway of the Sanchi stupa and are represented elsewhere too in early
Indian art. Yakshas and Yakshinis are pictured in the Ajanta frescoes.
In Ceylon the Yakkah is not a mere mythical name even today. He lives
in the numerous folk cults of rural Ceylon, reflecting something of the
traditional enchantment of the isle of Lanka of old.
Legends gave place in time to the reality of the Veddah being indis-
putably the indigenous people of Ceylon at the dawn of history,-—“indi-
genous” to all practical purposes though he shares racial and cultural
affinities with the jungle tribes of India, which the anthropological

term, Veddoid, indicates. The Veddah has not been without lingering
traces of his Yakkah descent. That at least is the tradition®
(Spittcl: Vanished Trails).
Vijaya’s victory spelt the doom of the Yakkah. As the Pandyan
princess, daughter of the Pandyan King, arrived from Madura to be wedded
to Vi jay a, Kuveni took her two children and departed to Lankapura, the
seat of the Yakkahs. On recognising her, a violent Yakkah “killed her
with a single blow of his fist”. The children left alone were persuaded
by their uncle, a Yakkah, to flee quickly. “Fleeing with speed, they went
from thence to Sumanakuta. The brother, elder of the two, took his
sister, the younger one, to wife and, multiplying with sons and daughters,

they dwelt within the interior of Ceylon. From these sprang the
“Pulinda”, as the Mahavamsa (Ch. VII, 63-68) says. The word (Pulinda)

9, The total Veddah population today numbers 3000 in round figures. This
includes the changing Veddah in the transitional stage of assimilation with
the people of the villages adjoining the Veddah Settlements.
The Veddah still in the jungle, leading a life largely of primitive
Gmtivstkni supplemented by the resources of the jungle* number a thousand*
more or less.
 13

is used in this context as more or less synonymous with, the Veddah.

Pulinda, however, is a generic term as wide in its implications as the name
Sahara, denoting tribal peoples in general. It is interesting to note that
the name, Sahara, is perpetuated in “Sabaragamuwa”, — a name unique
among the names of the provinces of Ceylon for its special tribal associa-
tions.

The term Sabara occurs in the Sanskrit classics like the Aitareya
Brakmana, the Mahabharata and the Vishnu Purana to denote jungle
tribes, not always friendly to neighbouring peoples of the plains.
Illuminating glimpses of Ceylon’s early human types are afforded to
us in occasional discoveries in the gem pits and jungles of Sabaragamuwa4 .

Of the early tribes, the Negroids and the Australoids were evidently the
first to find their way in course of their migratory movements to Ceylon,
the one on the heels of the other. Later arrived the peoples of the “Medi-
terranean" racial type, who began, as they did in India, to spread, occupy-
ing the coastal lands and mixing with the earlier tribes in Ceylon in the
process.
In the struggle for existence, the Negroids were the first to perish,
leaving a trail of legends behind. At this far distant stage of human
history, the racial aspects of population in respect of any land are nearly
impossible to discriminate. This is as true of Ceylon as of India. To
these early tribes, the Negroids and the Australoids may be ascribed the
varieties of stone tools discovered in a number of prehistoric sites in
Ceylon.
Ceylon’s legendary lore about the “Nittevo” 5 may well be indicative
,
of the early Negroid, a dwarf Negrito, not more than four feet high with
ape-like jaws and long finger-like claws. These creatures are said to
game by holding hands and surrounding the quarry. They
seize their
killedand devoured Veddahs who fell into their hands singly. The
Veddahs retaliated by coming in hordes, driving the Nittevos
into caves
where they were smoked to death. Thus they
perished. Possibly a
distant reminiscence of the Nittevo appears in the name of the village,
Nittavela, in the vicinity of Kandy.

*'
111 “s ““
5'
25ML c ° tab °' '»«
 ° . ,

14

We have now in Ceylon a number of tribal groups. 8 The most

conspicuous of them is the Veddah, —
blend of the Australoid
clearly a
and the Mediterranean race in varying degrees of physical traits, and not
uniform in make-up (Plate 1, Fig. ii). The Negroid character of the
Veddah is steadily diminishing and typical Negroid figures are scarcely
seen today. The Veddah for thousands of years has been steadily rece-
ding, before waves of immigrants pouring into Ceylon under different
stimuli from all over the vast Indian mainland. The process is one that
has been almost continuous from the later centuries of the pre-Christian
era and through the Christian era to the sixteenth century and beyond.
To resume, however, the story of events after Vijaya’s occupation.
As he refused to be crowned king unless a princess of equal status sat
with him as queen, his advisers urged him to send a mission “to the
city
of Madura of Southern (India) to woo the daughter of the Pandu
King
for Vijaya” and “daughters of others for the ministers and
retainers”.
The Pandu King, “when he had obtained many maidens and had given
compensation to their families, sent his daughter bedecked with all
her
ornaments and provided with all that was useful for the journey”. In
the
company were “craftsmen and a thousand families of the eighteen guilds,
entrusted with a letter to the conquerer Vijaya.” Maha
( Ch. VII, 48-58).
This assemblage of men and women, of royal status and
commoners,
represents the first known planned settlement of peoples from India after
the arrival of Vijaya.Vijaya was succeeded by his brother's son Panduwas
(444-414 B.C.). With him came “thirty-two sons of ministers in the
disguise of mendicant monks”. His queen was Bhaddakaccana,
daughter of a Sakhya Prince. She was accompanied
by “thirty-two women
Wends (Maha. Ch. VIII, 20-24). Her brothers followed her to
.
Lanka.
To them axe attributed the founding of the cities of
Anuradhapura,
Urawela and Vijitapura.
Of sporadic colonisations there must have been
many in those far-
off years of Ceylon history . One such was that of the ‘nobles of Kajara-
‘

gama and the nobles of Candanagama” who were present at the Festival
of the Great Bodhi-tree, «thc ceremonial
reception to the sacred sapling
brought by the Theri Sangamitta,
daughter of Asoka. (Maha. Ch. XIX

h ibiLl STOck ** Rodiyas, almost as many in number as

ll ^-
°/ mat-weavers, and the
f SnakC ' CharmerS > inuuigrants from
sSS SaSft
 ,

15

54-56). Of the stream of sporadic immigrants, as distinct from the one

described in the chronicles,” this
7
coming of "the nobles” — of whom more
later— is an instance.
The reign of Devanampiyya Tissa (247-207 B.C.) marks the turning
point of Ceylonese history. With the adoption of Buddhism as the
religion of the island, followed by changes consequent on it in the religi-
ous and social of the people, Asokan influences began to pervade the
life

cultural life of Ceylon. More than any other single factor, Buddhism
linked India with Ceylon, and the master architect of the new cultural
edifice was Asoka, —
Dharmasoka, as he is known in Ceylon, 8
The Jataka tales mirror to us varied social activities and ways of life

in pre-Buddhist India, prominent and craftsmen organised into

crafts

guilds, and trade and traders. Of merchants and of traffic over land and
good deal of evidence. Since the reign of Devanampiyya
sea, there is a

Tissa, Ceylon had extended her relations with India, and achieved closer
contacts. Kaveripattinam in the South East was a port of great commercial
activity and maritime and inter-colonial enterprise.
Arteries of trade served distant traffic centres within the country.
External trade relations developed, and means of communication linked
India with lands across the frontiers and overseas. One of the major
routes lay over the river valleys leading to the sea-ports, Bharukachha
(Broach) and Suparaka (Sopara) on the Bombay coast, extending by sea
route to Ceylon. Ships sailed down the river to the mouth of the Ganges,
and thence overseas to Ceylon and Malay. 9

7. Paranavitana, S: Ceylon Journal of Science Section G, Ch. II, pp. 99, 100,
175,176.
8. Researches into the inscriptions of Asoka, provided yet another link.
The authorship of the inscriptions known to Indian history as the
Piyadasi inscriptions long baffled scholars until Prinsep in 1837 discovered
the key to the reading of the script. Though this paved the way to the
interpretation of the edicts, it still raised some doubts. The name borne by a
Ceylonese king intrigued Prinsep who suggested that the Piyadasi of the
inscriptions might well be this King of Ceylon — , Devanampiyya
whose reign Buddhism became the religion of the land. But George
Tissa in

Tumour of the Ceylon Civil Service, who was working on the same lines,
came to the conclusion, based on Ceylonese chronicles, that the Piyadasi of
the Indian inscriptions was none other than Asoka. Tumour communi-
cated his discovery to Prinsep who promptly hailed it and published
his
revised views in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 1837, Vol.
, VI,
pp. 790-94.
9. An overall picture of the trade routes that linked India with lands on her
frontiers and overseas, and of her colonisation movements across
the
counties of South East Asia, is presented to us in the pages of Jawaharial
Nehru s Discovery of India, fourth edition, pp. 192-198.
 16

The Mahavmua tells us that envoys from Ceylon with gifts from
King Devanampiyya Tma to King Asoka embarked at Jambukola10 in
northern Ceylcm, and in seven days reached the port of Tamralipti
(Tamluk) at the mouth of the Ganges. By the same route the envoys
returned with gifts from Asoka to Tissa. (Mafia, Ch. XI, 18-40). Fa-
hien embarked for Ceylon in the fifth century A.D. from this sea port at
the mouth of the Ganges. A third route towards the south was from the
Ganger ic Valley to Prayag (Allahabad), Kausambi, Bharhut, Vcdisa and
Ujjaini to the mouths of Godavari and the Krishna, skirting the South
East coast to Ceylon. By this coastal route, sailed through all the
historic periods hosts of colonists who left their South Indian homes
and made for Ceylon, their heme of adoption.
Scattered about in the Mahavamsa, are numerous references to trade
and traders. The retinue that accompanied the Bo-sapling from India to
Ceylon included families oftraders. The extensive ruins of the monastery,
Vcssagiri in Anuradhapura, testifies to the time when merchants entered
holy orders. Here dwelt the five hundred Vassas “when they bad received
the Pabhaja from the great Thera”. (Maha, Ch. XX, 15-16).
A friend of prince Duttagamani was the Brahmin, Kundali, “in whose
possession was merchandise from overseas”. (Maha. Ch. XXIII, 23-34).
The commodities exported to the Island included horses. Sumana, the
Governor of Giri in the village of Kutumbiyangana, had “a Sindhu
horse that would let no man mount him.” (Maha. Ch. XXIII, 7 1).
Sena and Guttaka who came at the head of a great army and overpower-
ed King Suratma (187-177 B.C.) and ruled over Anuradhapura (177-
155 B.C), were “sons of a freighter, who brought horses”. (Maha. Ch.
XXI, 10-12). Trade led the way to political conquest and we are told
that Elara "frean the Chola country, a Damils of noble descent”, seized
the kingdom from Asek (155-145 B.C.) and ruled for forty-four years
(145-101 B.C.) “with even justice toward friend and foe” (Maha. Ch.
XXI, 13- 15). The process of trade opening the door for conquest conti-
nued in after years. Tissa, a Brahmin, became a “rebel in the reign of
Valagamha" and “ha following waxed great”. The Pandyan taking
advantage of the situation invaded Ceylon, vanquished the king and five
Pandvans ruled from 44 to 29 B.C.
In South India in later ages, kingdoms and dynasties rose and fell.

10. Believed to be the present Satnbiittuai, in the vicinity of Keerimalai.

 Fig. 1. Siteliya: the cascading brook which legend has
it was a favourite haunt of Sita.
PLATE I

Fig. 11. A Veddah family.

 «

PLATE 2

m mi

fr:
t
^r-iry tel
 H5 l. The i attaJage —
a circular shrine marked by concentric
—
circles of monolithic pillars at Pollonaruva.
PLATE 4
Fig. H. The tuhalkade —
main architectural feature of the stupa
Kantaka Cetlya at Mihintale:

0W*»Wfcw»»„
(««»«»*>»

•
.... -
;
 17

The Pandya, Chola and Vijayanagar kingdoms, each attained supremacy-

in the zenith of its power. Each vied with another for political expansion
and conquest. Ceylon could not help being a partner or participant in
the successive policies of these kingdoms, and in their wars of succession
between rival claimants, the main features of which will be touched upon

in a subsequent chapter.
After a long spell of peaceful relations from the 2nd century B.C. to
8th century A.D. —covered by the Satavahanas and the Pallavas in South

India, the era began of relations which were not so peaceful. They came
to a head with the Chola occupation of Pollonaruwa in the 1 1th century.

Political conquest as part of a scheme of colonisation, loomed largest

at this stage of Ceylonese history. Though Ceylon rallied her forces

and regained sovereignty, with the expulsion of the Chola by King Vijaya-
bahu I (1055-1114), the scars the invaders had left behind, never
completely healed in the minds of the Sinhalese.
The evil the The good is scarcely recog-
Cholas did lived after them.
nised,—the monumental temples to the gods, and the wealth of metallic
art in bronze images of the gods, art-treasures which vie with the best in
South Indian Art. But the Chola episode has to be viewed in its proper
perspective. It was aggression by an imperialist power of a martial age, in
which the people had no voice. Political conquest as a factor in the
peopling of Ceylon of the Middle Ages ended with the Cholas.
A complex of forces operated after the decline and fall of the ancient
kingdoms of South India. The advance of the new Muslim States
resulted in the break-up of the magnificent Vijayanagar Empire. As the-
Afghan conquest and Muslim ascendancy in the North led people to
migrate to the South, the emigrants were faced by a series of difficult
situations in South-East India, which led to large-scale exodus. Ceylon
offered the best hope of a home. From the thirteenth to the sixteenth
century, an era of extensive colonisation of Ceylon from the lands of
South-East India ensued. The immigrations were a fairly continuous
,
process.
But peopling of Ceylon was not altogether a matter of emigration from
its big neighbour India, however far-reaching these movements of
emigration may have been. Ceylon had her own attractions for distant
lands and peoples. Occupying a commanding situation on the highways-
of the seas, Ceylon is accessible from both the East and the West. With
the endless waters to the South, it was rightly called the “utmost Indian.
 18

isk Taprobane’ . The pearls, gems and spices of this island, pendent from
India’s southern tip, have drawn foreign merchants to its shores since

very early times. The Romans and the Arabs were among
Greeks, the
the earliest to be attracted to Ceylon, first by way of South India and later

direct, front the 2nd century A.D. on. After the decline of the Roman
Empire, the Arabs took up the Roman trail. Besides trade, the footprint
on Adam’s Peak fSri Pada) regarded by the Muslims as the sacred foot-
print of Adam, was an attraction to the Muslim world.
Among the early foreigners to settle in Ceylon were also some Persians,
of the Nestorian sect of the Christian Church. They were probably
merchants, who lived at Anuradhapura. An interesting relic of them is

a piece of stone sculpture in the form of a Cross, recovered foom the

rums of Anuradhapura and supposed to date back to the time when the
Nestorian Persians lived in the city, though the identification of this

sculpture has raised some controversy. Persian trade relations, however,

ended at the 7th century.
The Arabs now began to take a more sustained interest in trade with
Ceylon and formed some trade settlements. In the fulness of time these
became the nuclei of a growing Mohammedan colony in Mannar on the
North of Ceylon and on the West Coast. Ibn Batuta 11 who came to
Ceylon in the 14th century speaks of an Arab ruler with 500 horsemen
at Beruwela, and refers to Muslim pilgrims coming to view Adam’s
Peak.
About the 9th century, China, under the Sung dynasty, also entered
the ring and they considerably influenced Ceylon in the Middle Ages. 1*
Sir Alexander Johnstone 13 refers to the tradition that the first Moham-

It, Rev. S. Lee: The Travels of Ibn Batuta, 1829, Section “Ceylon”.
12. Beruwela, the town by the Sea Coast on the West, has a China Street.
A trilingual stone slab inscription discovered in Galle records gifts from the
emperor of China to the Sinhalese king.
13. In the coarse of a communication addressed by Sir Alexander Johnstone in
1827 to the Secretary of the R.A.S., the statement occurs that “by means of
their different establishments in the Southern peninsula of India, the Moham-
madam introduced from thence into Ceylon, between six and seven hundred
yews ago, the first body of cloth-weavers that ever was settled on that island”
{Ttaxsactisns, R.A.S. London, Vol. I, pp.538, 540).
That this evoked great appreciation at the time is evident from the
same communication. “1 have a copy in my possession of a very curious
«ad very ancient grant in copper, made by one of the Cingalese Kings of
Ceylon, about six or seven hundred years ago to a great Mohammadan Mer-
chant who was then residing at Barbareen, and to his descendants forever,
of (Uii privileges and i mm
unities in consequence of his having introduced
 19

mcdaxts of Ceylon are “the descendants of that portion of the Arabs of

the house of Hashim who were driven from Arabia in the early part of
the eighth century by the tyranny of the Caliph Abdul Malik ben Merwan.
The division of them which came to Ceylon formed eight considerable
—
settlements, one each at Trincomalee, Jaffna, Mantotte, Manar and
Coodramalle, Putlam, Colombo, Barbareen, and at point de Galle”.
Whatever may be the historicity of this tradition, the places named
contain large settlements of the Ceylonese Moors today.
The term “Moor” sounds so queer a name to apply to the Ceylonese
Muslim that it needs some explanation. Like many a term in the social
history of Ceylon, “Moor” is from the Portuguese, a term
a heritage
supposed to be derived from the people of Mauritania whom the Portuguese
called Moors, from “Maurcs”, neighbours of the Portuguese. The
“Moors” of Ceylon feel and also avow that the term connotes “race”
Anthropologically speaking, however, it is not quite correct to take “Moor”
as a “racial’'’ term. Yet the term has this traditional significance from
long usage.
Not all Ceylonese Muslims can be accounted for as the descendants
of the Arabs, whose contacts with Ceylon were more or less desultory and
ceased entirely from the 13th century on. The “Moors” of later times
were all of Indian descent.

With Muslim ascendancy in India, and Muslim expansion in the

economy of South India, a numerous Muslim community formed in the
Erst or Coromandel Coast and spread in considerable numbers to
Ceylon
where their co-religionists had already a foothold. The South
Indian
Muslims have thus contributed in a large measure to the establishment
of the Ceylon Moors as a powerful minority in Ceylon,
numbering
about 560,000, settled in and scattered almost all over Ceylon.
Besides
the Ceylonese Moors, an element of South Indian
Muslims numbering

U b d
•*«*»*• — ««
BrahmShrf s ah“ ri^ ..accounts ?P eak ° f them as "the Salankayana
supposed to have lived at Mahasalipatam, the

». n
,r “ a p ™" a f™
The latest arrival of the Salagamas in the thirteenth
centurv is con-
 20

approximately 42,000 who are not Ceylon nationals, exist on the island.

Stimulated by considerations other than trade, came the Malay, from

far-off Java in the 13th century. Under the leadership of Chandrabanu,
a name strongly reminiscent of Hindu influences in Java, the Malays

numbering about 3 1 ,000 are in the island’s population. They were largely
recruited for their martial spirit by the Dutch for service in their fighting
forces, and later in the army of the English in the early colonial days of

the English in Ceylon.

While speaking of the Moors, it is convenient to refer to an import-
ant community of Ceylon, the Salagama, reputed to have been brought
over to Ceylon by the Muslims in whose company they are believed to
have first arrived. The event is one which finds conspicuous mention
in the early years of British occupation as already stated (pp. 18 and 19
supra).
Among the major groups to come from India is the Karava, numbers
of whom were settled in the maritime villages of the Western littoral dur-
ing the time of the Kotte Kings. They arrived on the invitation of King
Farakramabahu VI (14 15- 1467), for military aid. As professional
soldiers, they figure prominently in the warfare of Ceylon from medieval
to colonial times, chronicled in a number of Sinhalese documents and
records, and the Portuguese and Dutch tombos/ 4
Latest field studies of the group lead us to conclude that their original
Hindu Karava of Kuru Kulathar
structure is best preserved today in the
dan, in the far-flung Mannampitiya of the Tammankaduwa
village of
division of the Polonnaruwa district where to they presumably fled with
their caste banners and flags and their ceremonial insignia, probably
during the early days of the domination of the maritime coast lands of
Negombo by the Dutch. 15
A community essentially of businessmen is the Chetti of South India.
Visiting Ceylon frequently for purposes of trade, they came in time to
fix up heir homes in Ceylon. Considerable numbers assembled in and
about Colombo, where they came to be designated “the Colombo
Chetties”, by which name they arc known today. As traders, they had
begun to arrive in different periods of Ceylonese history, since the time
of the Sinhalese kings and the Portuguese, the Dutch and the early

14. R&ghwan, M.D: The Karova cf Ceylon: Society and Culture, Colombo, 1961,
co. 11-56.
15. mi, pp, 66-71.
 21

British. In the latter period there was a large influx of the Chetties.
The majority arc now Catholics, converted by the zeal of the Portuguese,

later arrivals mostly adopted the same faith. Originally Hindus, as the
Chettics in South India are, the Colombo Chetties are well-known for
their integrated community life, and they have maintained for long their
colourful customs, distinctive costume and social observances which,
however, have vastly changed today, almost to the point of extinction
under modernistic influences.
A community of people who appeared on the horizon of Puttalam on
the north-west of Ceylon in the fifteenth century are the Mukkuvers.
The earliest of them to reach Ceylon occupied large areas round about
Batticalaa in the Eastern Province in the early ages. In time they spread
over the J&fFna Peninsula and established sovereignty over the Island of
Delft and over a number of principalities in the hinterland of Jaffna.
Well settled today over large villages in the Eastern and Northern Pro-
vinces, they are a vigorous social group in Puttalam and Kalpitiya owning
cocoanut gardens and tobacco plantations. A good number represents
on the extensive salt-pans of Puttalam.
small-scale fanners or workers
The group names of these and other colonists proclaim their South
Indian origin, showing how Ceylon’s geographical situation has been
the decisive factor in her social history. Each group was a cultural
unit
and contributed some elements to the making up of the diverse character
of the people of Ceylon. Though the merger of the major elements was
acceleratedby the pervasive force of Sinhalese culture, it was the common
bond of Buddhism that integrated them as a Sinhalese community, though
the caste units among them continued to live and still live, each its own
group life.

As Ceylon was being filled in by an assortment of peoples,

well on
the way to settled life, the Portuguese, the first of the Europeans to
reach
Ceylon, arrived in 505 and for about a century and a half, were the masters
1

of the situation and caused profound changes on the

political and social
front. To the Portuguese we are indebted for
the detailed records left
m their voluminous registers, their tombos, for much of the socio-
economic data of the Western littoral from Puttalam to Dondra.
The
Dutch came wake of the Portuguese. By the time the Dutch
in the
era
ended {11558-1796], the Portuguese and the
Dutch, though politically
ineffective, had left their mark on
the life of Ceylon in its social and
religious spheres. Among the heritage of the Portuguese are the
 22

Portuguese Burghers, “the descendants of the train band of militia men

of raised Portuguese descent”.
The successors
to the Dutch in Ceylon are distinguished by the name
the Dutch Burghers numbering 50,000 approximately, “the descendants of
the civil and military employees of European ancestry of the Netherlands
East India Co. on the date of the cession of the Dutch Settlements
in
Ceylon to the British” (1796), 16
The term also includes “the descendants of the ‘Vry Burghers’ of
European origin who had been permitted by the Dutch to reside and
carry on trade and other occupations on their own account in
Ceylon”.
A cultural entity of their own, the Dutch Burghers have largely
maintained a standard of life in keeping with the old days of their domi-
nance in the island and have made a lasting contribution to its socio-
economic life.

With the Kandyan Convention of 1815, Ceylon passed

signing of the
into the hands of theThe opening of the tea plantations in the
British.
colonial days, promoted the rise and growth of an immigrant
population
mainly of estate labour drawn from the Tamil districts of South India.
The comprehensive term "Indian Tamils”, numbering about 10,36,000
inclusive of elements other than estate labour, best denotes
them as distinguished from the Ceylonese Tamils numbering
10,50,000.
From this rapid survey of the forces and factors in the peopling
of the
Island, it easy to realise Ceylon’s varied social landscape which
is
it
acquired through the ages having something of the
character of a
“'continent in miniature”. 17
As a region that owes her rich life and culture to immigrants drawn
to her shores from far and near, Ceylon is a classic instance.

16. Cey l'n 6, VoL 160 ff •

l
ofCeyhn on VitalIV '

Statistics, 1S59.
R*P<>rt of the Registrar- General

17 . Aecordin? to the Report 0 f the Registrar General on Vital

Statistics , 1959,
P UOD “ is *WM00
of which the Sinhalese
^b?t%Ju cm
Noa-Sinhakv.*, not reckoned in the above survey, include
Europeans 7,000,
and a number of “Miscellaneous Elements",
totalling 34,000.
 Ill

CASTE IN THE SINHALESE SOCIAL SYSTEM

The earliest peoples to arrive in Ceylon from India were totemistie

tribes, —that is, “tribes taking after the totem birds and animals which
stood in relation to them in some mystic association”. Sinha, the Lion,

was evidently the totem of the tribe to which Vijaya belonged. The
totem is still in Ceylon,—the Sinhala lion, the symbol of the Sinhalese

and the most conspicuous symbol of the nation today.

The arrivals from India of a later age, of whom Mahavamsa speaks
(Ch. XIX, 1-4), the retinue of these groups that accompanied the Bo-tree
from India, also included totemistie tribes, “the hyaena ( Taraccha ) and the
sparrow-hawk chats”. Other tribes mentioned in the Mahavamsa are the
“ Lamhakarna Balibhajaha 1 (crow), Mariya (peacock) and Kulinga (the
.

fork-tailed shrike)”. Though some of these names persisted for long

especially the mariya and the lambakartia, the tribal organisation merged
in the social system that was introduced into the island with the introduc-
tion of Buddhism and evolved later.

The dawn of Ceylonese history, when the island was known as Lanka
in India, is covered by mists of the supernatural and mysterious and it is

not till we come to the story of the Veddah, whose life in the island and
continued existence I have already referred to, that we reach something
real and tangible.
Though the Veddah in point of race and culture is distinct from the
Sinhalese, he has changed largely under the influence of the Sinhalese
and the Tamils of the border land villages. He now enjoys social parity
tad is regarded as approximating socially to the large Sinhalese agri-
cultural group, called the Goigama, who constitute about ninety per cent
of the Sinhalese population.
The major Sinhalese groups in alphabetical order are the following:
—Durava, the Goigama, the Karava, the Navandanna and the Salagama.
A fairly numerous group is the Durava, mostly of South and South-West
Ceylon. They are probably largely responsible for the flourishing coconut

1. A distinguished name for the crow, which feeds on the offerings (bali) of
food meant for the spirits of the ancestors.

23
 —

24

plantations of the Middle Ages. They trace their home to India.

The Goigama, the community of agriculturists, and cultivators, is the
largest of the Sinhalese groups. The Navandanna is also a fairly consi-
derable group, the nucleus of which has obviously been the artisans and
craftsmen, including workers in gold and silver, who came in at different
periods of the history of the Island.
One of the groups to arrive early in Ceylon is the Karava. In the
time of King Parakramabahu VI of Kotte (1412-1467), the Karavas
gained in numerical strength from fresh arrivals reputed to have been
summoned from South India to encounter the Mukkuwer, who at this
stage appeared on the north-west coast lands of Ceylon.
The Salagama, originally weavers of fine cloth, presumably arrived
from South India in the 13th century.
The groups has lived
present social standing that each of these
up tosuch that there is no social subosdination and no social pre-
is

cedence of one over other. This social alignment is a pervasive

process, spreading steadily over the entire Sinhalese social
structure. The functional differences of the feudal days are
steadily giving way especially to the levelling tendencies of Bud-
dhism.
The shape of society, however, was far otherwise in the Midde Ages.
A comprehensive account of the Kandyan Social Constitution is presented
to us in D’Oyly’s Constitution of the Kandyan Kingdom, followed
by a number of social codes like Armour’s Grammar of the Kandyan
Law, and Niti Nighantuwa referred to as “an anonymous recapitu-
lation of it in Sinhalese”, which was done into English in 1880 by Le
Mesurier and Panabokke. 2
Both Armour and Niti Nighantuwa speak of four great “Wanse”
the Brahmin, the Kshatriya which included the Raja, the Vaisya or the
Velanda, and the Govyiya. These authorities also affirm that the members
of the three highest castes who came to Ceylon did not preserve their
castes but married into the Goyiwansa, who comprised a number of
classes based either on particular services to the court or on certain
specific class distinctions.
Apart from the Hindu elements in pre-Buddhist Ceylon, it was inevi-
table that by virtue of her geographical situation, Ceylon would be

3. Hayfey, F. A: The Lasts end Custom of the Sinhalese, 1923, p, 148.

%
 25

considerably influenced by social contacts with Hindu India in later ages.

Indian contacts reacting on local conditions have thus no doubt had their
effect on the Sinhalese social pattern. Mahavamsa thus pictures the
retinue of peoples that entered Ceylon from India with the
Bo-tree;
“Eighteen persons from royal families and eight from fa m ilies
of Ministers and moreover eight persons from Brahmin families and eight
from families of traders and persons from the cowherd class likewise, and
from the hyena and sparrow-hawk dans (from each one man) and also
from the weavers and potters and from all the handicrafts, from the nagas
and the yakkas.”
If we view the phenomenon not as an isolated incident of history,
but as one of the many pluses in the dynamics of Ceylon’s sociology, it
is easy to follow the stand taken by these expounders of Ceylon’s social
law, who interpreted the Sinhalese social system in terms of the Hindu
fourfold varna system.
Ot the many references to caste in the Ceylonese chronicles, the
Mahavamsa and the Culavamsa, a few of the more conspicuous may be
briefly reviewed here. Among them is the reference to the four castes
having “become impure through mixture”,-—the castes which General
Avasmanta of the time of Queen Kalyanavati (1202-1208) is reported to
have “scrupulously separated”, Culavamsa Ch. 80, 41). The allusion
( ,

to King Magha (1214-1235) having “brought great confusion into the

four sharply divided castes’ ’, is very much to the point
( Culavamsa II, Ch.
80, 75). PujavaJiya, a Sinhalese work of the 14th century, elaborates
it
stating that Magha of Kalinga “disintegrated the
caste status of the
womanhood and manhood of the noble families of Lanka (by inter-caste
alliances).” 3 Other references to the Varna System in Sinhalese
literature throw side-light on the early alignment of Ceylonese society
with the Indian varna system.
All this leads to the conclusion that caste had
a traditional vogue in
the social structure of the Island. But
Buddhism entered as a factor in
the social evolution, being the religion of
the land from 227 B.C. in the
reign of King Devanampiyya Tissa,
and social life underwent changes
under its impact. The process was one of slow and steady adjustment

3 .
Medhankam M: Pujavaliya, 1932 Edition, Ch. 34, p. 26 c<
: Lakdive Kulastringe
jatt kambheda Kotta, Kula daruvan Sivasikarava.”
 26

and absorption as will appear from such evidence as is available of the

social history of the first three varnas in Ceylon.

To take the Brahmin first, Ceylon in ages past had its Brahmin.
His intellectual heritage and his priestly role gave him an assured place
in the ancient times of Ceylon. That the Brahmin lived in a special social
grade and enjoyed a high social position, we may well conclude from a
study of the chronicles and epigraphs of the first three centuries B.C.
A number of Brahmins was distinguished by the rank of Parumaka,* a
rank signifying a chieftain, next in rank only to royalty. Donations of caves
by ‘Brahmin’ donors are announced in a number of cave inscriptions.*
The Brahmin’s was an honoured and privileged position as amatya or
minister, guru or teacher and as purohit or priest.

The Nikaya Sattghrahaca tells who

of king Virabahu II (1391-1397)
bestowed villages, lands, fields on Brahmins. 6 Into the
and other rich gifts

Brahmin’s ways of life in the Ceylon of the 15th century, we are given an
insight in the well-known poem Kavya Sekara by the great Sinhalese
poet, Totagamuwe Sri Rahula. That Brahmin youths were among the
pupils of Vijayahahu Pirivena of Totagamuve, also appears from the poem
7
Gira Sandera by Vattave Swami, a contemporary and pupil of Sri Rahula.
The Brahmin’s favoured position finds a challenge in Vidagama Svami,
another contemporary of Sri Rahula who, in his poem, Budugamlan-
karaya, 1 indulges in a bitter attack on the Brahmin and his religion.
The Brahmin, obviously resistant to Buddhist influences, attempting
to keep up his separate identity fused imperceptibly in the Sinhalese
Buddhist fold in the course of ages.
It is evident that the Brahmin continued to hold his ground and his
priestly role for a considerable time after the Buddhist religion had been
The Oruvila grant, a royal grant of King
established in the island.
Parakramabahu VIII of Kotte (1484-1518) records the bestowing of the
villageof Oruvila in Aturugiri Korale to two purohit s? In northern
Ceylon, the Brahmin survives today purely in his priestly function in

4. Derived probably from a combination of the two Tamil terms, Periya Mahan,
the* 'big son”.
5. Htcholw C, W: "Brahmanas in the Early Sinhalese Kingdom”, University
©/ Ceylon Review, Vo!. Ill, Oct. 1950, Pp. 259-263.
6. Simon de Silva: Nikaya Sanghrahava, 1907, p. 25.
7. Sugstapala T: 1920 Edition of Gira Sondesa.
8. TayatUafci D. B: 1921 Edition of Budttgmaianharaya.
9. Epigraphies Ztyksncia, Vol. Ill, p. 51 fit.
 27

Hindu temples. As a major social category, he has ceased to exist in the

island, although names reminiscent of the Brahmin’s once vigorous life in
Ceylon in widely separated parts of the Island, such as Brahamanavatta
(the garden of the Brahmin) and Bamuttugama, (the village of the
Brahmin) and the name Agraharam, a village of South Ceylon, testify to
the place of the Brahmin
5
in the social life of the Middle Ages of Ceylon.
The destiny that overtook the other varnas was similar. Kings
were in a special category, and the person of a king was sacred, whether
considered in relation to the mythical Mahasammata, the ideal king,
favoured of and elected by the people, or by convention of his traditional
Kshatriya status.
Niti Nighantuaa derives ‘Kshetriya’ from his status as the lord of the
kskitra or fields which vested in the leader selected as king who was given
the title Mahasammata, literally “the one selected by universal suffrage”.
Interpreting the tradition of the Mahasammata in the light of
contemporary epigraphical records, we are told that Gamini, as a royal
title, was adopted by early Sinhalese kings even before King Dutta-
gamani. 1 ® This indicates that the earliest rulers of Ceylon were
popularly elected leaders, called Gaminis.
That the ‘Kshetriya had a traditional superiority, can be seen in
11
from Ceylonese works like the Elu Attanagaluwansa of 1382
side-lights
A.D. where we see a Kshatriya chieftain, Selabhaya by name, to whom
was born a son whom he showed to the Brahmins learned in the art of
the samudrikalakshana.
For more light on the Kshatriya, we may turn to the Venerable Nanda’s
counsel to Siri Sangabo (300-302 A.D.) where reference is made to the
latter being born of Kshatriya- Vamsa, noted for their “treasured
abhimam ”, or ‘wealth of pride’.
As regards the third caste, Vaisya, it is recorded that the retinue of the
Bo-trec included representatives of the “traders” or the Velandakula.
In terms of the Hindu social order, the traders formed the third varna.
They were among the earliest supporters of the Buddhist faith. The
ruins of Vessagiri in Anuradhapura recall the days when merchant princes
took holy orders. In the GuttilaKavya , IS a poem of the 15th century.

10 . S. Paranavitana: "The Royal Titles of the Early Sinhalese and the Origin
of Kingship in Ancient Ceylon,” JRAS (C.B.), part III, 1936,
pp. 443-462.
u. De Silva, Simon: Elu Attanagalu-Vamsa, 1914; p. 6.
12 . Gunawardhana, W. F: Guttila Kavya, 1916; verse 7.
 “

28

the Minister Jayapala of Halavata (Chilaw), is said to belong to the Velan-

datmlaj “renowned in the execution of justice, flawless in the knowledge
of the laws of kingship, acquainted with all arts and illumining the
Velandakula like the full moon in the sky.” The term, Velandakula,
died hard. It survives to-day in such names as Hettiaracchi, Lokuhetti,

Kubahetti, etc. The term “Hetti” is derived from Setthi in Pali,

meaning a banker or a merchant prince.
The frequent references to the four vamsas also include the last and
the fourth, the Sudra, although the place held by him is not so clear.

The Niti Nighantma 13 speaks of the four great castes or vamsas as the
Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaisya or the Velanda and the Gowiya”. 14 Davy,
however, writing in 1821, makes mention of the ‘Soodra’ vamsa as sub-
divided into “sixty low castes”, though he lists only twenty-one.
In planning the building of Anuradhapura, King Pandukabaya (377-
307 B.C.) settled the ‘Candalas’ in a separate village and to the north of
the Candala village, he built “the line of huts for the huntsmen”,
(Maha. Ch. XXXV- 18). Probably the last mention of the Candalas
is during the reign of Vijayabahu IV (127 1-1273) who, while building the
city of Pulathinagara (Pollonaruwa), brought together workers
including “the Candalas who undertook work for hire” ( Culctvamsa II,

Ch. 8-106). The term Candala seems to have been of general

application, signifyingmore than a particular social group.
Apart from the Mahavamsa, mention of the Candala in Sinhalese
literature is scarce. The mention of the Candala in the Sadharmalan-
karaya u has therefore an interest of its own. In the story of Nandi
Vanija Vasttma, the impermanence of all material things is thus
preached: “Sickness and death come alike to all castes, viz., Raja,
Barnunu, Velanda, Govi, Candala and Pukkusa”. 18
The Candala has his place in the early legends as in the story of the
three brothers, traders in honey, one of whom served honey to pacceka-
budJha. The merit of the act was rewarded by the brother being born

13. Le Mvusurier and Paaabokke: Niti-Nighantuma, 1880; pp. 5-6.

14 a v>;— Asl Account of the Interior of Ceylon”, 1821, pp. 111,1 12,113 and
P, ,
122” 129,
15. ; Nandi Vanija Vastur^a, Ch. 22.
14. The Dictionary (P.T.S. 1925) expounds the name ft Pukkusa”
as the name of the non-Aryan tribe of a low social class, the members of
which arc saja (in the Jatakas ) to earn their living by means of refuse
cleaning..
 29

as Asoka, and the maid who directed the pacceka-buddha to the honey-
giver being born as Queen Asamdhimitta. One of the brothers who on
seeing the Pacceka-buddha insultingly remarked of him, “it is surely a
Candala, for the Candalas always clothe themselves in yellow garments”,
was bom a Candala in a Candala village, though he attained deliverance
later (Maha. Ch. V, 49-61).
“Lower classes” is another appellation used in the Mahavamsa, as
in the observation that “in their heedless way of acting, they slighted
people of good family and placed ambitious men of the lower classes in
leading positions”. Of interest in this connection is the Ambagamuwa
Rock inscription of Vijayabahu I (1055-1114 A.D.), In making a gift of
the Buddha’s footprint on Adam’s Peak (Sri Pada) to the worshippers,
be tells of the charitable institutions and endowments he had founded for
the sake of the pilgrims. Lines 28-38 of this inscription mention that
“he had a terrace constructed below the terrace where the sacred footprint
ns and thus gave
i
facility) for low-caste people to worship the relic of the
Sage.” 17
A factor of society was constituted by the ‘huntsmen’, for whom
Pandukabaya built lines of huts in Anuradhapura. Later in the time of
the King Dutugemunu ( 10 1-77 B.C.) they are mentioned as the “Luddako”
or “Luddo” and they occupy a social position which gives them free
access to the king. a huntsman had rightly interpreted a
It is said that
miracle the king had observed in a forest and the king decided to build
there a great thupa, and “bestowed on the huntsman
a rich guerdon”
(Maha. Ch. XXVIII, 9-12 and 41). The ‘hunters’ in later days lost their
former status, and “those who lived by slaughtering of life” were
speci-
fically referred to as of “low caste”. For an apt illustration, we have the
story of a traveller meeting King SiriSanga-Bo in the forest of Attana-
galla. He invited the king to partake of a portion from the pot of rice
he held in hand. The king declined, at which the traveller remarked
that he was not born in the low caste who lived “by the
slaughtering
of life” and in fact he was one of noble birth. 18
These glimpses into the social history of the Island
serve as index to
its ancientand medieval social structure. They elucidate
much of what
“ ocherwise obscure, though they reflect the
past, having little corxes-

17. EpigrepMa Ztylmica, Vol. II, p. 217.

io. XJc Suva, Simon ; EIu Attanagaluvamsa,
1914, p. 32.
 30

pondence to the present BuddMst conception of Sinhalese society. Bud-

dhism operated against the growth in Ceylon of a caste system such as

it developed in India, where the fourfold varna system proliferated into

a multitude of castes and a complexity of laws, customs, habits and social

19
patterns .
The Hindu word for caste is jati which in Sinhalese does not denote

caste in the Hindu sense, but signifies the entire body of Sinhalese society
as one entity, as in the term ape jatiya. Among the few who have
expressed their opinions on the social system of Ceylon is Ananda

Coomaraswamy. He remarks that the caste-system of Ceylon differs

from the well-known fourfold system of the Hindus and is “similar
to the Dravidian system in South India in which the cultivator is ranked
0
as the highest .”*
The Sinhalese System is in fact neither on all fours with the Hindu
varnaskrama, nor with what Ananda Coomaraswamy calls the South
Indian Dravidian System. The hierarchical organisation of a graded
social order, has steadily given away under the progressive humanism
of Buddhism and the stimulus of modem socio-economic trends and
common interests.

In speaking of the Sinhalese Social System, it is of importance to note

its two fundamentally different parts. On the one hand are the major
constituent groups, each a social and cultural unit, with a pattern of inter-
group behaviour, with no principle of inherent social precedence. What
these major social units are has already been described. On the other
hand, are the numerous groups, some large and some small, appro-
priately designated Functional or Service Groups. Each was distinguished
by its particular form of service to society at large. These constituted a
regulated hierarchy of functions and services as in the Feudal Consti-
tution of the Kandyan Kingdom. Among these are washermen, potters,
drummers and dancers, and several others. They cannot be described
as members of 'low castes’ in the sense of “depressed castes’ or the ‘low
the Hindu social system, though they may be historically
castes’ as in
regarded as a ‘hang-over’ today from feudal practices. Among writers

19, Hutton : Caste {a India 1946.

2®, tksKBgraswatny, A: Mediaeval Sinhalese Art, p. 21. In the above correlations
of the Sinhalese Social System, I have extracted relevant portions from my

^^26 Parti?
8 System —A Sociological Review, Spolia Zeylanica,
 31

3 * writing in drawn attention to

on Sinhalese laws, Haylcy 1923, has this

important feature of Ceylonese social system: “When

independent
writers like Knox, Cordiner, and Davy give different accounts, the con-
clusion would seem to be that there was no fixed order of detailed pre-
cedence such as is sometimes supposed. Some castes are clearly of higher
social rank than others; but between castes of nearly equal degree, the
distinction was perhaps in some cases, less certain.”
The “castes of nearly equal degree ” are very much more equal to-day
than when Haytey made these observations three decades ago. The
changes have been such that the remarks of writers of the colonial days
on the distinction of Ceylonese society are very much out of date to-day.

21. Hayley, F. A: Lams and Customs of the Sinhalese , 1923, p. 148.

 IV

THE INDIAN PERIOD OF CEYLONESE HISTORY

It is customary to name the successive periods of Ceylonese history

according to the predominant foreign influence in each. Thus we have

the ‘Indian Period’ to signify the period from Devanampiyya Tissa (247-
207 B.C.) to the coming of the Portuguese (1505 A.D.). It is followed
by the Portuguese, the Dutch and the British Periods. Orthodox his-
torians commence ‘historical Ceylon’ from the reign of Devanampiyya
Tissa, on the ground that it is only after the introduction of Buddhism
that a connected account of the history of Ceylon emerges. The hesi-

tancy of historians to accept the pre-Buddhistic age of Ceylon as historical

may be respected, but it is unfair to the Mahavamsa chronology, and we
cannot dismiss the years before Devanampiyya Tissa as altogether

mythical. It is true that archaeology in Ceylon has yet to come to the aid
of history to construct the cultural sequence of the Vijayan and pre-
Vijayan epoch.
Though in the Mahavamsa there are sites reputed to be centres of
Yakkah life founded by the early colonists, no exploration of
and cities

these areas has yet been made. Yet through sporadic discoveries and
excavations that have been made in sites generally held to be pre-historic,
we have definite knowledge of a vigorous pre-historic population who
have left unmistakable evidence of their life, in the form of stone imple-
ments of recognised types, hammer stones, pitted pebbles, flakes and
microliths of quartz and implements of bone. Other objects reminis-
cent of prehistoric culture include terra-cotta statuettes, notably of
Maradanamaduva-Tabbowa culture of the North Central Province on
the way to Anuradhapura, 1 and globular funerary urns such as those
recently discovered by the Ceylon Department of Archaeology near
Pomparippu on the Puttalam-Marichakkatti Road. 2
These objects of the prehistoric ages of Ceylon bear striking resemb-
lance to objects unearthed from prehistoric sites of South India, notably

L Demdyagak P. B. P: Some Aspect: of the Prehistory of Ceylon; “The

Batagoda Culture.” “Femo-Lithic or Early Historic Terracotta Statuary”
Spelia Zeylamoa, VoL. 27, Part III.
Z Archaeological investigations near Pomparippu ; Ceylon Today , Informa-
tion IJepartment, Nov. 1956, pp. 13-15.

32
 33

Adkhanallur in Tinnevelly district, and they are widely distributed over

the early human settlements of the present Madras and Chingleput
districts.

Though pre-history is outside the province of the historian, excavations

of prehistoric sites often serve to give new orientation to the writing of
history. So far as Ceylon and South India are concerned, the general
pattern of their prehistoric cultures disclose a foreshadowing affinity in
feature to the culture of their later historic periods.
These prehistoric finds are signs and tokens and considered in con-
junction with the events, of more definitely historical times, will justify

the naming of the entire pre-Portuguese period of Ceylon as the Indian

Period of Ceylonese history including within its compass the pre-Vijayan,
Vijayan and post-Vijayan epochs down to the reign of Devanampiyya
Tissa (247-207 B.C.).
Vijaya was the first Sinhelese king and he lost no time in initiating
relations with royalty in India. That the initial contacts should be
matrimonial is significant. The precedent set by Vijaya’s espousal of the
daughter of the Pandyan king3 became something of a convention in
succeeding ages. Matrimonial connections made Sinhalese monarchs
kinsmen of Indian nobility, and we find king Parakramabahu II (1238-
1271) felicitating himself on the part taken by him in promoting such
“I have brought hither king’s daughters from Jambudipa with
relations.

and thereby made the nobles of the foreign land your kinsmen”.
gifts

[Maha. Ch. 87,28). A later record relates to the days of King Raja
Sinha II (1636-1687): “He brought the king’s daughters hither from
the town of Mathura, and after holding sway powerfully for fifty and two
years, the mighty monarch Raja Sinha who had guarded as his own eye,
in the best way, the order of the Royal Sage of the line of the Sun and
the laity, he the best of men went over to the king of death” {Maha.
Ch. 96,40).
These social and domestic alliances had far-reaching consequences
which endured all through the long course of Sinhalese monarchy. The
kings of Ceylon were soon taking sides with rival claimants for supremacy
in

3. pie Pandyan Kingdom finds mention in the early Tamil

works of the
banram Age In extent it covered the modem districts of
Ramnad, Madura
and Tmnevelly with the South Vellar as its northern boundary. Politicallv
estabIishcd during the Sangam Age,
the Pandyan kingdom,
L5 “ ble Presume* must have had a long course of development in
its beginnings going back to a respectable antiquity in
the pre-Christian era.
 34

South India, automatically drawn into the incessant fighting that was patt
of the life of the Middle Ages. While this participation in political causes
outside Ceylon served to enlarge the vision of Sinhalese kings beyond
the confines of the Island, it also gained a name for Ceylon in the political

history of the times. It was, however, not all a blessing, for this kind of
activity brought its own reaction, the conqueror in these campaigns often

turning his victorious arms against Ceylon.

The chronology of the early Sinhalese monarchy beginning from
Vijaya holds together in such a coherent sequence as to support the con-
clusion that the time ascribed in the legend to Vijaya, —6th century B.C,—
may not be altogether unreliable. The date finds general corroboration
—
from the chronology of the Sangam Age the closing century of the pre-

Christian and the opening centuries of the Christian era.

Indian relations, more specifically historical and culturally more
significant, begin with the reign of Devanampiyya Tissa (247-207 B.C.),

the contemporary of Emperor As oka (274-237 B.C.) who is said to have

sent missionaries to spread Buddhism in Ceylon.
The Asokan period of Ceylonese history, beginning with the reign
of Devanampiyya Tissa (247-207 B. C.) and ending with the reign of

Mahasena (334-362 A.D.), was to Ceylon an era of advancement under the

stimulus of Buddhism which gave to social life, as also to Sinhalese
monarchy, a moral and spiritual stability which it has ever treasured.
The outstanding successors of Devanampiyya Tissa were king Dutu-
gemunu (101-77 B.C.) and King Gajabahu ( 174- 196 A.D.) both noted for
thdr heroic deeds and their services to Ceylon. Though punctuated at
intervals by sporadic invasions from South India, Ceylon's social and
cultural life suffered no set-back. Among the personalities of this age,
was the Tamil King Blara (145-101 B.C.) who ruled “with even-handed
justice” and for the welfare of the country until he met a hero’s death
in open battlefield in his encounter with Dutugemunu who restored the
Sinhalese monarchy after he had “overpowered thirty-two Damila
kings”. (Maha. Ch. XXV, 75).
Tamil influences are indeed evident before Elara, during the time of
Sena and Guttaka (177-155 B.C.), and after, in the reign of Valagamba
(43-29 B.C.). Five members believed to have been of the royal dynasty of
Pandya, —Pulahatta, Bahiya, Panayamaraka, Pilayamaraka and
Dathika, —ruled in succession in the course of the same year (43 B.C.).
Dynastic disturbances between the rival clans, the Moriyas and the
 35

of internal instability
Lambakaroas were responsible for a measure
A.D. seized the throne from the Moriyas, thereby
until Vasabha in 126
Lambakamas as the ruling Sinhalese dynasty.
establishing the
country rose in
With the coming of Gajabahu (174-196 A.D,), the
its reputation both at home and abroad.
Cilappadikaram , a Tamil epic of
relations with
2nd century AJD., bears testimony to Ceylon’s friendly
evident token of which was Gajabahu’s presence at the
South India, an
of the cult of Fattini, the Kannaki of the legends,
by
first installation
Chera Kingdom. The Sinhalese folk song
King Sengottuvan of the
the
Gajaba Kathava tells of Gajabahu’s bringing from the Choli capital
insignia of the Kannaki goddess, her golden anklets and
most venerated
Pattini cult
the texts used in her worship. Thus was introduced the
Ceylon, one of the most popular of the folk cults of rural Ceylon
in
today.*
Among of Gajabahu was Abhayanaga (285 293
the successors —
A.D.), the first of the kings, as we are told, to seek the help of a Tamil
army from South India to establish himself on the Sinhalese throne.
[Maha, Ch. XXXVI, 49-51). The period was remarkable for a succession
of great kings and witnessed in its closing years a unique royal personality
in Siri Sangabo (300-302 A.D.),— the king who turned a sage and lived
as an ascetic in the jungles of Attanagalla. Here he sacrified his head
to enable a beggar to claim a reward of two thousand gold pieces which
Gotabhaya, his traitorous brother, in his bid to secure the throne at any
cost had announced. The last king of this dynasty, Mahasena (334-
362 AD.) developed a system of irrigation by tanks and constructed the
large water-reservoirs of the Island.
Ceylonese history fromDevanampiyyaTissa (247-207 B.C.) to Maha-
sena (334-362 A.D.) witnessed the first blossoming of art in Ceylon.
The earliest monumental structures of Ceylon belong to this period,
3rd century B.C. to 4th century A.D. Mahasena, whose claim to renown
rests on his planning of the large irrigation tanks, built also the largest
stupa in Anuradhapura the J ctavanarama
,
. It is often called the Abhaya-
giri Dagoba. Dutugemunu Lohapasada (the brazen palace)
built the
and began the Ruvanvelisaya Dagoba, completed by his successor Sadha
Tissa (77-59 B.C.).

4. For a detailed study of the cult, see Ethnological Survey of Ceylon :

"The Pattini Cult as a Socto-religious Institution”, Spolia Zeylanica , Vol. 26.

Part I, pp. 251-261.
 36

King Devanampiyya Tim (247-207 B.C.) is the first of the great

builders of the sacredmonumental structures. The earliest of these 1*
said to be the Thuparama Dagoba of Anuradhapura and one of the earliest
is the Kantaka Cetiya 5 standing to the right of the sacred hill of Mihmtale;
which is so old that nothing definite is known about its date or of its

builder; its beginnings are presumed to date from the first century B.C.,
with King Lanja Tissa (59-50 B.C.), and continued by his successors.
Standing in all its glory after 2000 years, the four altars at the four points
arc architecturally among its most striking features. In the words of
Paranavitana: “Some of the motifs, such as the foliated scroll rising from
a vase, are reminiscent of the Buddhist art of Central India as represented
by the bas-reliefs of Bharhut and Sanchi.” 5 In the south of Ceylon is the
Tissamaharaxnaya built by king Ila Naga (96-103 A.D.), giving evident
testimony to the importance of South Ceylon in the early annals of
the Island, To this period too probably belongs the great dagoba at

Kdaniya, though who built it is unknown.

Among the cultural features of the period, the appearance of the
Mahayana Buddhism in Ceylon is worthy of note. It was a new school
of Buddhism which had developed in India about the 1st century A.D.
and found its way to the island. The cult of the Bodhisattvas mainly dis-
tinguished it from the Theravada, the orthodox school with the ideal
of individual salvation by a life of spiritual discipline and contemplation.
The Mahayana leaders of South India include Nagarjuna who gave
to the doctrines of Mahayana Buddhism a system and form of its own.
The Buddhist Amaravati and Nagarjunakonda testify
antiquities of
Buddhism attained in South India in that age. Begin-
to the great heights
ning with Mahasena, the influences of Mahayanist thought and practice
spread and modified the social and religious life of the people: it developed
the popular taste for ceremonials, rituals and festivals.
It was through Mahayanist influence that some magical rituals became
incorporated in the practice of Buddhism in Ceylon. Among them is
the chanting of pirith. Whatever its earlier Indian origin, in Ceylon
pirith-chanting became a popular sodo- religious institution which
remains among Ceylonese Buddhists even today. The sacredness of the
Bays days, —
die foil moon, foe new moon and foe two quarters, worship

3* Believed to have been built on or about tbe site of Mahajagara, the shrine to
the Yakksh Mahsja, which was demolished to make room for the dagoba.
6 SmktUete Art emd Culture, Information Dept., Ceylon.
 37

of sacred relics, Buddha with offerings

prayers before the image of the
of food, worship of the sacred Bo-tree, pompous celebrations of the
seasonal festivals, the Vesak and the Poson, and the Esala peraheras at
both Hindu and Buddhist shrines in Ceylon are some of the observances
that may directly or indirectly be traced to Mahayanist influence.
Folk religion with the cult of the gods and unseen forces, bali or pro-
pitiation of the planetary deities, and the tovil or magical curative rituals,
developed, each with a system of its own. An organised cult of the gods
uncomprehended by Buddhist doctrines evolved with all its colourful
diversity.

The political and social life of the period centred mainly round
Anuradhapura, the seat of the Sinhalese monarchy. A subsidiary centre
was in the remote south-east round Magama, capital of an independent
kingdom. Prominent mention is made in the Mahavamsa of king Kaka-
v&nna Tissa (200 B.C.), with his seat at Magama on the Kirinda Oya.
To Magama had drifted the golden vessel in which Tissa of Kelaniya had
enclosed his daughter and set it afloat as a sacrifice to appease the wrath

of the gods. On the ark reaching the shores of the Kirinda Oya, Kaka-
—
vanna Tissa made her his wife, the famous Vihara Mahadevi, mother
of
Duttugemunu, Less romantic is the bald statement in the Mahavamsa
(Ch. XIX, 52) that among the peoplewho came, by the power
of the gods,
eager to join the festival of the great Bodhi tree in
Devanampiyya Tissa’s
reign were present “the nobles of Kataragama”
as alluded to already.
These references to South-East Ceylon in the closing
years of the pre-
Christian era show that it was a region
with a considerable past behind
it and important in Ceylonese history.
Paranavitana’s epigraphical researches have
thrown much light on the
existence of an independent royal
dynasty in South-East Ceylon in the
third and early second centuries B.C.
He concludes with these observ-
ations: “The origin of the Kshatriyas of Kataragama is obscure. The
only mention of them in the
chronicles is in chapter XIX, verse
54, of
the Mahavamsa. There is no
statement to show that they were in any
way related to the royal family then ruling
at Anuradhapura. It appears
possible that the Kshatriyas of Kataragama
were connected with a stream
o immigrants to this Island
quite distinct from the main stream
whose
legends and traditions arc the theme
of the chronicles of Anuradhapura.”
7

7. Ceylon Journal of Science Section

, G 11, pp. 99 , 100, 175, 176.
 38

A body of data that has never been8 fully laid under contribution to
T
the gaps in our knowledge of early Ceylon are the amil traditions and
fill

poetical compositions of the Sangam Age of Tamil literature. Apart

from Mahavamsa, the earliest reference to the “Kshatriyas” of Ceylon
occurs in the Yalpana Vaipava Malax , in the statement that “about two
thousand four hundred years ago, Singhabahu, a Kshatriya of Vanga
was King of Lada. His eldest son Vijaya Kumar a, a lawless youth
was expelled from the kingdom
He went to Lanka and established himself at Kathira
Malai in the centre of the country” This statement about Vijaya’s
establishing himself at Kathira Malai, the hill abode of God Kathira, more
popularlyknown as Kataragama (Pali: Kajara gama), is of great interest.
Indeed these many references to the Kshatriyas of Kataragama and to the
tradition of Vijaya’s having settled at Kataragama have given rise to
speculations that Kataragama and its environs once extended to the sea and
were a region more easily accessible from other Asiatic lands, having
an open sot-board which could well have been the landing place of Vijaya,
more convenient than any other place in Ceylon. 10
It was only to be expected that the independence of the Kshatriyas
of Kataragama did not go uncontested. We get an insight into these
rivalriesfrom Paranavitana’s studies on the inscriptions of Bovatagaia, at a
distance of about 30 miles only from Kataragama and consider the results
of his epigraphic studies in the light of a statement in the Dhatimamsa
that Gothabhaya, the ruler of Rohuna, grandfather of Duttha Gamini,
“killed the ten brother kings of Kataragama, and for expiation of this
crime, built 500 viharas on either side of Mahaveli Ganga.”
The specific reference to “Kshatriyas” is interesting as the earliest
of a name recalling the Hindu Vamashrama. Unrelated
positive mention
as the Kataragama Kshatriyas appear to be to the ruler of Magama or to
the Anuxadhapura line of kings, they were very possibly an off-shoot from
one of the royal dynasties of South India, whether of the Cheras who held
the greatest of the South Indian kingdoms of this epoch, almost
synchronous with the Sangam Age of the Tamils, or of the Pandyas who
rose to power
on the decline of the Cheras. That these epigraphs should

8. Brito: Yalpana Vaipava Malai, p. 1; and Nevill: The Taprobanian 1885,

Pp. 46-47.
9. Riaanayagam, C : Ancient Jaffna, page 55.
10. Vbayatunga, J The hit ofLanka, Ceylon, page 93.
:
 39

carry the engraved symbol of a

fish is a point of interest. The fish-
emblem points to the probability that they might have belonged to one of

the royal dynasties of South India who found their way to Ceylon in

those early ages.

The break-up of imperial unity after Asoka’s reign was followed by
therise of a number of kingdoms. Three main political divisions emerged.

To the north were the great plains of the Indus and the Gangetic valleys;
midway was the Deccan plateau, the region to the south of the Vindhya
range and the Narbada; west of this was the rising Maharashtra, Kalinga
in its north and Telingana in its south-east. South of the Krishna were
the great South-Indian Kingdoms, Chera, Chola andPandya.
Influences from India on Ceylon varied according to the character of
the age and the particular dynasty holding power. All the dynasties
were not aggressive or militant.
Long before the wars for supremacy started between the imperialist
Pandyas and Cholas in which Ceylon was involved, from the ninth to the
twelfth century, the Satavahana dynasty which held sway from the 2nd
century B.C. to the 3rd century A.D., influenced life in Ceylon. Their
kingdom was wide; it comprised the rich valley of the Godavari and the
Krishna and extended to Nasik to the West. The Satavahana kings
gave as much encouragement to Buddhism as to Brahmanism. The
Satavahanas were followed by the Pallavas. The culture fostered by both
the Satavahanas and the Pallavas in South India had its impact on
Ceylon, specially in the fields of religion, art and architecture.
Ceylon in the 7th century had friendly contact with the Pallavas.
Manavanna, heir to the Ceylonese throne, was a friend and ally of the
Pallava King Narasimhavarman, (630-668). Their joint armies triumphed
overthe power ofPulakesin II. In the words of the Mahavamsa, “Mana-
vanna showed his heroism distinguishing himself by his courage like
Narayana in the battle of the gods ; Narasimhavarman embraced him loving-
ly saying it is thou who hast brought me v ictory The king reciprocated
and placed him at the head of a strong force fully equipped’ Manavanna
’
.

embarked at the sea coast and arrived quickly and penetrated into Lanka-
dipa. At tidings of this King Dathopatissa fled. Manavanna triumphed
over his enemies and came to the throne. ( Maha ., Ch. XLVII,
15 et. seq). The Tiriyayi rock inscription in the vicinity ofholyTirukona-
malee (Trincomalee) on the ruins of an ancient Buddhist monastry called
the Girikandicetiya bears evidence of this episode of the Mahavamsa.
 40

Paramvitana comments as follows on the script of this inscription:

"The script of this record is one of its main features of interest.
It resembles the Pallava Grantha of about the 7th century, and in this
script have been written the few Sanskrit inscriptions of this period
found in Ceylon.
The resemblance to the Pallava Grantha in the script of this and
other records from Ceylon is striking and a certain foreign influence,
probably Pallava, in the development of the alphabet in Ceylon during the
6th and 7th centuries seems very likely. The political history of the
Island in the 7th century was probably influenced by the Pallavas as seen
from the account of Manavanna. It is also noteworthy that most of the
Ceylonese inscriptions which are written in a script resembling the Pallava
Grantha are in the Sanskrit language and of Mahayanistic character.
The appearance of the Mahayanism in Ceylon was always due to Indian
influences, and the native tradition originating from the cultural contact
of Ceylon with India in the time of Asoka. But the orthodox community
of the Mahavihara strenuously opposed these influences whenever they
gained strength, but they were, it seems, strong enough to have left

enduring traces in popular religion as well as in the domain of letters .”

Considering resemblance of the script of the Tiriyayi rock-inscription
to South Indian of the period of Paramesvaravarman I, who flourished
in the latter half of the 7th century and taking into account the degree of
development of the alphabet noticed in Ceylonese records dating from the
8th and 9th centuries, we are justified in assigning this epigraph to the
dosing decades of the 7th century or the first half of the 8th”.
(Epigrapkia Zeylanica , Vol. IV, 1934-41, pp 152-153).
The subtle aesthetic influences of the Pallava art over Ceylon of the
time is my to understand, when the cordial relations between Ceylon and
the Pallava kingdom are kept in mind.
The may well have been a
Pallavas are great navigators, and Ceylon
stage in their maritime enterprises over South East Asia. With the fall
of the Pallavas and the rise of the Cholas and Pandyas, Ceylon entered on
a different phase of relations with these militant powers of South India.
The Gupta age of India was a source of considerable influence on
Ceylonese art and letters. It was an age of renaissance in India, an age —
of brilliant achievements. Literature and the fine arts flourished in the
courts of kings. The court of Vikramaditiya (385-413 A.D.), successor of
Samudragupta (335-385 A.D.) was especially illustrious for the presence
 41

of Kalidasa whose masterpieces like the Sakuntala , the Raghuoamsa and

the Meghaduta were regarded as models of poetic composition and were
an inspiration to Sinhalese writers and poets of every succeeding age.
In fine arts, the famous frescoes of Ajanta were models of the art of
Sigiriya and of a few other sites in Ceylon. In the plastic arts, Gupta
influence was equally obvious, We shall revert in a subsequent chapter
to this topic.
The Gupta dynasty came to an end about the 8th century. New
dynastiesand new rulers filled the stage of North Indian politics, but
with no outstanding personality among them except Harsha (606-664
A.D.) Indian influences on Ceylon thereafter became predominantly
South Indian, and continued to be so down to the coming of the
Portuguese in 1505.
The chronology of Sinhalese monarchy of the period gives us a list
of sixty kings from the close of the fourth to the beginning of the eleventh
century. The reign of Mahanama (409-431 A.D.) is noteworthy in it for
the visit to Ceylon of Buddhaghosa, the great Buddhist scholar-monk
from India, and Fa-Hsien, the Chinese pilgrim. His reign was followed
by a flaring up of rivalries between the Lambakarna and the Moriyas for
supremacy, which gave an opportunity to Pandyan adventurers to try their
luck in Ceylon. A succession of six Pandyan chiefs occupied the Sinhalese
throne in the course of the year 433 A.D. The
invaders were repelled
by Dhatusena (460-478 A.D.), but and wrangles for the throne
agitations
followed his death. The rightful heir Muggalana escaped to India.
Returning with reinforcements after an absence of eighteen years, he
fought for and won back the throne from Kasyappa who had ruled as king
from his mansion built over the rock of Sigiriya.
Dynastic disturbances and civil strife were intensified during succeed-
ing yean, causing untold hardship and distress to the people. Kings
Sikmeghavanna (617 A.D.), Agbo III (626 A.D.), Dathopa Tissa I
(626-641), Dathopa Tissa II (650-658) and Manavanna (676-711) each in
turn went over to South India for reinforcements from Tamil mercen-
aries. Manavanna, struggling to retain the throne, turned
to the Pallava
King Narasimhavarma I, whom he helped against Pulakesin II, and was
in turn helped by him to retain his ascendancy in Ceylon.
The Pandyan king Srimara Sri Vallabha (8 15-862) invaded the country
in the time of Sena I (831-851). The Tamil mercenaries
already in the
Island joined forces with the Pandyans who had occupied
Anuradhapura,
 42

returning borne with the spoils of the campaign. The Pandyan invasion
of Ceylon was avenged by Sena II (851-885) who besieged Madura and
placed the rebel son of Sri Vallabha on the Pandyan throne and culti-
vated friendly relations with the Pandyas.
Ceylon had now to contend with the rising Chola King Parantaka I

(907-953 A.D.). Parantaka defeated the Pandyan, Maravarman Raja

Sinha II, who sought aid from Ceylon. King Kasyappa (913-923 A.D.)
sentfrom Ceylon an expeditionary force to his aid. The combined
Pandyan and Sinhalese army suffered defeat at the hands of the Chola.
Hard pressed by the Cholas, Raja Sinha II sought asylum in Ceylon in the
reign of Dappula V (923-934 A.D.). The latter, beset by his own
enemies, was unable to shelter him. The Pandyan thereupon left his
regalia with the Cheras and left Ceylon to seek aid of the Chera King.
The Chola king Parantaka I staged an invasion of Ceylon in the reign
of Udaya III (945-953 A.D.), ostensibly to recover the Pandyan regalia
which Raja Sinha II had left in Ceylon with the Chera mercenaries.
Udaya made no resistance, but fled to Ruhuna. Parantaka, the Chola,
nevertheless had to hasten back to South India as a new hostile force had
now risen, the Rashtrakutas, who under Krishna III inflicted a signal
defeat on the Cholas. Nonetheless the Cholas under Parantaka II (953-973
A.D.) again invaded Ceylon by way of reprisal, as the King of Ceylon,
Mihindu IV (956-972 A.D.) had helped the Pandyans against the Cholas.
Kings Sena V
(972-981 A.D.) and Mihindu V (981-1017 A.D.) had
now to face their own Chera mercenaries who broke into a mutiny in the
time of the latter king. To escape from the mutineers, the king fled to
Ruhunu. Rajarata for a time was occupied by troops — Sinhalese, Chera
and Kannata.
The Cholas having gained supremacy in South India, the Chola King
Raja Raja I (985-1014 A.D.) led an invasion to Ceylon and occupied
Rajarata. His sonRajendra I (1014-1044 A.D.) extended the conquests
over Ceylon. King Mihindu V was now deputed to India with the
Pandyan regalia.

Successive attempts to restore the Sinhalese sovereignty came to a

head with the accession of Kirti known to history as Vijayabahu (1055-
1114 A.D.) whose heroic deeds resulted in expelling the Cholas from
Ceylon in 1070 A.D.
Parakramabahu I (1153-1184) justified his name by contending with
rivals at heme and enemies abroad. His was a life dedicated to fighting
 43

and he carried his arms to South India in a number of campaigns with

considerable effect.
The Cholas having lost their hard- won supremacy, the Pandyans made

a rally. Rivalries for power among themselves broke out. Parakrama,

the Pandyan, sought the help of Parakramabahu, the Ceylonese king.
Though the latter succeeded in winning the cause of Vira Pandya, the son
of Parakrama Pandya, the gain was reversed by Kula Sekhara Pandya,
the rival who regained power with the help of the Chola King
Rajadhiraja (1173-1182).
Parakramabahu was at this moment handicapped by having to contend
with his rival claimant to the Sinhalese throne, Sri Valiabha, who having
escaped from Ceylon, received aid from the Cholas.
Kulasekhara Pandyan, secure on the throne of Madura, befriended
his erstwhile enemy King Parakramabahu. Enraged at this disloyalty, the
Cholas fought Kulasekhara who was dethroned and Vira Pandya was
then reinstated. The latter asserted his independence only to be
dethroned again by the Cholas who established Vikrama Pandya in
his place atMadura.
The by the Sinhalese kings in the South Indian dynastic
part played
rivalries and politics ends here, though the substantial gain from it to

Ceylon was inconsiderable except that it is said that Ceylon gained the
holy island of Rameswaram, the Hindu temple of which was later
renovated by King Nissanka Malla of Kalinga ( 1187-1 196), u who
succeeded Parakramabahu, the latter leaving no heir to the throne.
After these involvements of Ceylon with wars in South India, a number
of princes ruled in Ceylon from 1196-1214, four from Kalinga and one
from Pandya (Parakrama Pandu 1211), until Magha of Kalinga swooped
down with his mighty hordes and ruled over Ceylon from 1214 to 1235.
With Magha ends largely Ceylon’s South Indian relations, though a
fresh spdl of South Indian contacts is seen to begin with Vijayabahu III
(1232-2136) and end with Parakramabahu VIII (1486-1509) whose reign
heralded the coming of the Portuguese. The Chola receding in the back-
ground, the Pandyans alone kept up their dealings with Ceylon in con-
formity with their past practices. The Pandyan kingdom had extended
its domains under Jatavarman Sundara Pandya (1251-1270) as far as Nei-

ll. Nissanka Malla indeed claimed to have a right

over Ceylon by virtue of
earner matrimonial relations. King Mihindu
IV, of Ceylon (956-972-A.D.)'
having formed a marriage alliance with Kalinga.
 44

lore to the South. Vira Pandya turned his attention to Ceylon, marching
on and occupying Tirukonamalai (Trincomalee). Maravaraman Kula-
sekhara (1270-1310) followed his footsteps and invaded Ceylon again in
the reign of Bhuvenaka Bahu I (1273-1284). An interregnum ensued
of about 20 years, with the Pandyans in power.
Disputed succession between Sundara Pandya and Vira Pandya led
the former to seek the aid of Malik Kafur, of the rising Muslim power.
The weakened Pandya fell an easy prey to King Kulasekhara of the
Cheras who triumphed over both the Cholas and the Pandyans in 1315.
This spelt the end of the Pandyan empire and the rise of the Hindu
dynasty of Vijayanagar who occupied all that remained ot the old Pandyan
empire and made themselves supreme in South India.
A fresh chapter opened of Ceylon’s relations with India with the
ascendancy of the kings of Rayigam and Kotte whose dynasties together
cover the period from the late fourteenth to early sixteenth century.
There were two outstanding personalities in this period first, Vira —
Alakesvara, an adventurer prince of South India, a king in his own right
(1387-1391) and a power behind the throne at the Court of Rayigam; the
second, Parakramabahu VI (1415-1467), the only king of this dynasty
who ruled over entire Ceylon including the new Tamil kingdom of the
north, which became a vital force in the history of the Island from the
13th century on.
Politically, the reign of Parakramabahu VI is noteworthy for Ceylon’s
contacts with the mighty Vijayanagar empire. These relations, which
included military operations over land and have not been fully
sea,
investigated yet. Culturally, it was a period of Hindu influence, both in
the counsels of the court and in the fields of art, literature, music and
dance. These several aspects of culture will be dealt with in some detail
in the relevant chapters.
A panegyric poem in Sinhalese on Parakramabahu, entitled Pera-
kuntbasirtta, sings the praises of the king. In verse 130, the king is

addressed as suzerain over the Chera, Chola and the Pandya:

Vira Sera Soli Pandin ht ana dupane

Tara hara haragira yasaseti para tapane

Nora Varangana nccyamdana turn rupane
Vira Parakramabahu Barn kula dipane

The mighty Chera, Chola and Pandya, he vanquished,

 45

His spotless fame resplendent like the milky string of pearls

and the snowy Kailasa,
His comely person an alluring feast to the gaze of passionate
women,
The heroic Parakramabahu shines as a beacon unto the solar
race.
This was the mental attitude of the Sinhalese towards their kings,
and that it was shared by the kings themselves was brought home to me
at Puttalam a few years ago, when I came across a deed purported to have

been executed by a king who is described as ruler over “Kalingam,

Telingam, Cochi Malayalam, Vakuthai, Ham”. The deed confers certain
distinctions on Navaratna Vanniyan of Puttalam. J udging from the date
of the deed, the king referred to is king Raja Sinha II (1635-1687).
The rise and progress of the Kandyan kingdom were synchronous with
the European period of Ceylon history, of the Portuguese and the Dutch
eras. King Narendra Sinha (1707-1739), dying without an heir to the
throne, was succeeded by a line of Kings which goes by the name of the
Malabar Dynasty. There were four kings of this dynasty, viz., Sri Vijay a-
raja ( 1 747- 1780), Sri Rajadhi
Raja Sinha (1739-1747), Kirti Sri Raja Sinha
Raja Sinha, (1780-1798) andVikrama Raja Sinha (1798-1815).
Sri
Though called the ‘Malabar Dynasty’ there is nothing really Malabar
about this line of kings, nothing which relates them to the land of
Malabar. The term is used in the general sense of Tamil, and its usage
begun by the Portuguese, was continued by both Dutch and Sinhalese
historians. ‘Malabar dynasty’ really means the Naik dynasty of Madura
which traces descent from the Pandyan and the later Vijayanagar
dynasty. Narendra Sinha’s queen was a princess from Madura. Her
brother, who succeeded Narendra Sinha, was the first of the Malabar
dynasty of Kandyan kings.
 ,

SINHALESE ROYALTY AND THE CULTURE

OF THE COURT

The Sinhalese royalty has a chronicle from Vijaya (543 B.C.) tothe
end of monarchy in Ceylon (under the Kandyan Convention of 1815
A.D.). In the personal lives of the kings, as well as in the life of the
Court, the background of Indian traditions is evident.
We have touched upon the various cultural influences from the age of
Asoka, of the Satavahanas (100 B.C. — 300 A.D.), of the Guptas (319-800
A.D.) and of the Pallavas (500-700 A.D.) that reached the kings of Ceylon.
In later times also the Sinhalese kings of the Kalinga dynasty had con-
nections with India and were presumably recipients of this culture.
Kalinga, as we have said already, was linked with the very beginnings
of Sinhalese monarchy. Tilokasundari, mahesvari of King Vijayabahu I

(1055-1114) was a “charming young princess of the royal family of

Kalinga”. From the Kalinga kingdom came the sacred Tooth relic,
brought to Anuradhapura by a Brahmin woman. In the time of King
Aggabodhi II (7 1 1-717) a prince of Kalinga crossed over to Lanka “with
the resolve of world renunciation”. The prince’s minister and his
mahesvari had also followed his example. The King favoured these
guests and made gifts of viharas.
Of Mahinda IV (955-972 A.D.) the chronicle says: '‘Although there
was also in Lanka a race of nobles, the Ruler of men had a princess of the
line of the ruler of Kalinga, whom he had brought over and made his
first mahesvari. To her was bom two sons and a charming daughter.
He made "the sons adipadas and the daughter a queen; thus the ruler
founded the royal house of the Sinhalas”. The esteem with which the
Pandyan dynasty was regarded in the counsels of the court is evident
from the words with which Manabharana gives vent to his feelings admir-
ing his two daughters, Mitta and Fabhavati: “We are sprung from the
pure dynasty of the moon (Somavamsa), highly esteemed in the world,
at the head of all royal houses. In outward appearance (we are) enviable,
distinguished by every aptitude, experienced in the various sciences”.
Ctd 62-5),
(' Manabharana, Kittisirimegha and Srivallabha were three

46
 4?

wns of Mitta, the sister of King Vijayabahu I ( 1055- 1 1 14) married to “the
Pandu King who came of an unblemished line”. Ratnavali, King Vijaya-
bahu’s daughter, was the mahesvari of Manabharana.
Later, on the death of Manabharana, Queen Ratnavali and her
daughters Mitta and Pabhavati were put under the care of
Manabharana’s brother Sirivallabha. A conflict of motives arose in regard
to the bestowal of Mitta in marriage. Sirivallabha was keen on her being
wedded to his son: “Princes of the dynasty of Kalinga have many times
and oft attained to dominion in this island of Lanka. If now this queen
were to send her daughter away secretly to be wedded to Gajabahu who
is sprung from the Kalinga stock, he would by his marital connections

become mightier, but my son here would be without any support at all.
Hence it is advisable to give the princess to my son: as the matter thus
settled will be to our advantage”. “When the queen who was an orna-
ment of the Sun dynasty, heard all this and as it went against her wishes,
she spoke to the ruler thus: named Vijaya had
‘After the Prince
slain all the Yakkhas and made Lanka habitable for men,
this island of

since then the family of Vijaya has been allied with ours by unions,
mainly with scions of the Kalinga line. Union with other princes was
also hitherto unknown among us save with kings of the Moon dynasty.
How then, just becausehe is your son, could there be for us a union
with that prince who has sprung from the Ariya dynasty ?’ Although the
queen in this wise protested over and over again, he nevertheless forced
(the matter) and wedded the princess to his son. This (prince)
accompanied by his consort, distinguished by many virtues, winning all

people for himself, dwelt with his father.” {Cul. 63-12).

The matrimonial links with South India were maintained by the later
kings. King Parakramabahu II (1238 — 1271) felicitates himself on his
part in promoting such connections. "I have brought hither the king’s
daughters from Jambudipa with gifts and thereby made the nobles of a
foreign land your kinsmen.” Much the same thing is recorded of King
Raja Sinha 11(1636 — 1 687) (Cu/. 87-28). “He brought the King’s daugh-
ters hither from the town of Mathura, and after holding sway power-
fully for fifty and two years, the mighty monarch Raja Sinha who had

guarded as his own eye, in the best way, the order of the royal sage, of the
line of the Sun and the laity, — he, the best of men, went over to the
king of death”. (Cm/. 96-40).
From incidental references in the chronicles, we get glimpses of the day-
 ,

48

to-day life of the royal household where Indian traditions were

mixed v®
with Sinhalese. From such glimpses it appears that court life in
Cev2
followed a pattern of culture inherently Brahmanical. The
. Purohit
an institution, of the royal court. Prince Manabharana held “htma ma
m
and others to be salutary” and had them performed “by his house pri®
and other Brahmins versed in the Vedas and Vedangas” at the wticosr
Signs of his queen’s expectation of an issue. Full of joy “he had an am*
pregnancy gift bestowed on the Queen” ( Cul 62-36), At the birth
.
of
the son and heir to the throne, “the Monarch had the birth rites

other ceremonies performed.” He then summoned the house priest au|

other Brahmins and, having shown them the customary reverence
distinction, he charged them with a reading of the body marks of dt
boy. After carefully observing all the marks on his hands and feet,

they announcedthis joyfully to the king and queen: “Apart from

tk
island of Lanka he is able to invite under one umbrella and rule even
tic

whole of Jambudipa” (Cul. 62-33, 36, 44). The prince was given tit
significant name of Parakramabahu. As the prince came of age,
Upanayanam, the initiatory rite of investing the sacred thread, was duly
performed by “Brahmins versed inthe ritual of the Veda”, observing the
customary ceremonials enjoined by the Sastras for the “twice-born”,
The ceremony was of three days’ duration, rounded off by "a great
spring festival” (Cul. 64),

These festivals were occasions of great joy and merriment. Exquisite

dances were performed “assuming different characters”; various soap
were sung. Relaxing, “the king passed the time with games in the gardes
and in the water and with dance and song, fulfilling the kingly duties”
The king himself versed in “the knowledge of the moods (bhav a)”, inter-
preted “the underlying motif” of the dance and song.
The following is a summary account of the court life of Ceylonese

kings, by Saratchandra:
“As would be natural to expect, the culture of the Sinhalese had bees

ro nave conunucu lu uc so ngiu inrougntne cenuuu.es, uu*- *

that, in later times, the influencescame more from South India than fa®
the North. The fact that the kings became Buddhists and actively patro-
nised the religion, made no change in this state of affairs, for, in liskf
life the king was as free to adopt Hindu culture as the villager was fee
to adopt the non-Buddhist folk culture.
 49

"The King was installed as a ruler according to the Hindu custom

of Miseka, and in respect of his paraphernalia, such as the White Parasol,
the State Elephant, the State Carriage, the State Horse, dancing girls and
harem, he was similar to an Indian king. The king had a brahmin as
chaplain (purohita ) and, very probably, brahmins were responsible for at
least the secular education of princes. Hindu rites were performed in
the court in addition to Buddhist rites such as pint, and kings held up

before themselves the ideals of the tenfold rajadhamma and the laws of
Manu.”
"In view of occasional statements made in the Mahavanua it is not un-
,

likely that Sinhalese kings, although they embraced Buddhism, continued

to follow the traditions of Kshatriya princes in most of their non-religious

activities. They enjoyed water-sports and hunting, and, in some cases,
celebrated Hindu festivals like the Spring Festival and the Rain Festival
(mlha). Wickremasinghe opines that the description of Kshatriya life
found in the Kavsihtmina is based, not so much on books as on the personal
experience of the writer himself. If we accept this view and the impres-
sion of genuineness which, he says, the description leaves in the mind of
the reader, we can obtain a fairly detailed picture of court life of Sinhalese
kings from the Kavsilumina by the royal poet Parakramabahu II. It
is not at all unlikely that just as kings enjoyed water-sports and
garden-sports, they occasionally held a bacchanalia of the kind
described in this poem’\ x

1. Saratcbandra, E. R: The Sinhalese Folk Play. 1953, Pp. 14-15.

 VI

THE TAMIL IN CEVLON

It is common knowledge that, from about the thirteenth century, the

Tamil spread over the northern and eastern littoral of Ceylon and the

hinterland lying beyond. This terrain developed later into the Northern
and Eastern Provinces of the island and came to be known as the homeland
of the ‘Ceylon Tamils’.
The growth of a separate independent Tamil Kingdom in the North
in the 13th century set the pace for the progress of the Tamils in Ceylon,
till these came to be a ‘Tamil factor’ in the social and cultural life of the
Island. This rise of the Tamils more or less synchronised with the
disintegration in South India of the Chola and Pandyan kingdoms which
got merged in the new Hindu power, the Vijayanagar Empire, The sub-
sequent dominance of the Muhammadan power in South India brought
about the downfall of the empire in 1600. The unrest and disturbances
attendant on these shifts of political power during a few centuries had
their reaction on Ceylonese life and society on which Rasanayagam has
given us a few interesting sidelights: “In times such as these, many
respectable Vellala families may have emigrated to Ceylon. Some of these
settled in Jaffna and others sought refuge under Sinhalese kings and,
having accepted positions of honour and trust, became the progenitors of
some of the most respectable Vellala families of the South. Such a
migration of respectable Vellala chieftains is highly probable and there are

hundreds of families in different parts of the Jaffna Peninsula who trace

their descentfrom one or other of these early colonists.” 1
While this expansion of the Tamil element in Ceylon from the 13th
century on is historically well known, the comings and goings of the
Tamils in the earlier eras of Ceylonese history remains obscure. In
order to reconstruct this obscure chapter of history, it is necessary to piece
together data from a variety of sources, historical and archaeological as
well as from folk literature and a number of Tamil poetical compositions
of medieval times.

1. Rasanayagam s Ancient Jaffna , 1926, pp. 282, 329-330.

50
 51

Archaeological evidence of the existence of aTamil community at

ancient Anuradhapura is found in a Brahmi inscription on the face of one
of the ruined buildings of Anuradhapura discovered in 1939.® The script
reads: “the terrace of the Tamil householders caused to be made by the
Tamil S&mana, (residing) in Ilubarata’’. Paranavitana observes that
“the inscription proves that the stone terrace was the common property
of the Tamil householders of ancient Anuradhapura. Seven short records
tell us in a single line each that that portion of the platform immediately
above was the seat of a particular individual among the Tamil house-
holders”.
As to folk literature, we have the Kalvettu in the custody of certain
ancestral families of the Northern and Eastern Provinces. Kalvettu
literally means lithic inscriptions. But the term has been extended to
cover all sorts of folk literature, mostly what has been committed to
writing. The works of this folk literature are undoubtedly of much
historical and social interest, though they await study and
still

investigation.
There are, besides, a number of poetical compositions by bards of the
Sangam Age of the Indian Tamils, which narrate stories of the early
Tamil immigrants from India. A good many of these poetical composi-
tions are irretrievably lost. One of the few that have been handed down
to us is Vaiya Padal by Vaiyapuri Ayyar, the court-bard of King Jagaraja
Sekera (1519- 1565), which conveys to us the traditions of the early coloni-
sations. Vaiya Padal
romance in verse containing a good deal of
is a
sodo-historical material.
Beginning with a narration of the conquest of
Lanka by Rama and the crowning of Vibhishana as King of Lanka, it des-
cribes the subsequent events in the flowery language of poetry adorned
with a wealth of detail, speaking of the innumerable hosts of men who
swarmed into the northern and eastern parts of the Island.
The story of the immigrations may here be retold in brief. A Chola
princess, Marutha Piravikavalli, comes over to the sacred spring of
Keeri
Malai on the Jaffna coast by the sea to bathe in the holy waters
to get
herself cured of a congenital deformity, the horse
face she was born with.
Her deformity disappears on her bathing in the waters of the sacred spring.
To signify her devotion, she builds a temple reputedly known as Mavit-

Z a> T 0lders
i l
^ ’
Terrace ” Anuradha P u«> J.R.A.S.
Vof XXXV N“ 9?°mo
 52

tapuram. 8 There Ukkira Singham, King of Ceylon, meets her and

marries her. Of the union is born Vara Raja Singham who, assuming
kingship, sends for a princess from Madura to be his queen. The Pandyan
King nominates sixty Vanniyar of Taranipar Kulam, i.e. royal lineage,
to accompany princess Samathuti to Lanka. This is supposed to have
occurred about 3000 Kaliy uga Era, and it was the prelude to a wave of
colonisation. We get interesting glimpses of the Veddah living there
under the Veddah chiefs Chakarar and Karat.
at the time at Tanikkal,
The Veddah felt uneasy. To the west was a group of Yakkahs reported
to have fled to this spot on Rama’s arrival.

The king of Madura himself presently appears on the scene on a

visit to Lanka with a large retinue of colonists of various denominations.
A period of widespread colonisation follows and a number of villages are
founded. The peaceful life of the Veddahs of Tanikkal is further en-
dangered, Their chiefs. Chairman and Muniyan, approach the high
castes for land to settle on and for protection. The Mukkuver, led by
their chief Vediarasen, now enter the stage.
Faced by hostile elements, the Vanniyars organise themselves and
set up young Sinhabu to rule over them. Setting out in ships, they
encounter foul weather and all find a watery grave. When news of it
reached their wives, the Vannichies raised a fire at Selvivaikkal and im-
molated themselves. A revival of Vanniyar supremacy follows and a num-
ber of settlements, each with its own chief, are founded all over the land.
According to the Koneswar Kalvettu, Kulakkodan, the King of Chela,
came in Saka era 358, corresponding to 436 A.D. to worship at the
Koneswar Kovil at Tiruconamalai (Trincomalee). With him came
large numbers of the Vanniyars whom he established on the lands endowed
on the temple. The Vanniyars settled all over the place, cultivating land
and performing services at the shrine. A more prosaic version of the
story pictures the Vanniyars coming with the Chola invaders of Ceylon
in the 10th century, the Vanniyars never leaving the lands on which they
had settled. From these various accounts we may well conclude that
various dynamic forces operated in the colonisation of the land by the
Vanniyar, among the most colourful folks of the north and east of medi-
eval Ceylon.

3. Mavimpuram—Jiterilly, “The place where the horse face disappeared”.

The legend is one embodied in a number of kataetlu of North Ceylon.
 53

We may now take a glance at other caste groups comprised in these

colonisations. They are enumerated in a number of verses of the Vaiya
Paid. The following are a few freely translated:

Meekaman voyaged over the rising waves to Lanka,

In the ship were the beautiful royal ladies,
Nallathevan, high ranking Sobagiri, Sukrivan, Ankusan,
Sinkathi Mapanan, Thatparayan Arasan, Selvakodiyon Thevan.

Thillai muvayiravar, Chetti Vani, Thisaikondar,

People of Kudalur, Mullainattar, Paraver,
The original Mukiyar, Parayar, Vilaivanar, Muver, Roller,
Mata Maravar, Navitar, Komatti, Koviyar, Tachchar, Kannar,
Eighteen castes of kudies and numbers of Tatar sangamer.

Kuchiliyar, Akampadiyar, Kothirathar, Kovalarkal, Kuyar,

Kopalaranor, Dancers, people of Naga Nainativu and of
Manmunai tivu abounding in fish, people of Varunakula descent,
Malayalathar, Silliar of Achchamai, and Arya Vankisa Maraiyar.

Malaver, Oddiyar, Tottiyar women,

Sword-girt Vanniyer, Muver Vanar, powerful bowmen,
Flutists and cymbal-players, drummers, players on vanka
And other reputed instruments, with splendour and pageantry
Resounding the seven seas, the ladies arrived.

We find here a number of social and occupational groups who embark-

ed on a new career of life in a new land.
Among them most interesting groups are those termed the
Mullainattar which signifies peoples inhabiting Mullai tracts as defined in
the Chudamani Ntkandu. According to the classifications of the ancient
Tamils, lands were grouped into Mullai, Kurinchi, Neithal, Marutham
and Paled. Mullai is jungle land; Kurinchi, the hill country; Neithal, the
sea coast; Marutham, paddy land; and Palai, the dry land for common
uses by The Northern Peninsula of those days was largely
all classes.

Mullai land.
 —

54

The people who belonged to this type of soil, are referred to in Chapter
11 of Makkdpayarthokuti —Peyarppirivu, divided into the following
groups:

“Mullayar, Poduvarandar, mundu Kovindarayan

Vallavar, Kudavar, Palar, Maditakovalar, Kopaler.
Soloya Amudarayar, T oruvare idayarenpa
Mullaiyin Makkalper tamunnartku onrumame.”

Here we have the names of thirteen groups:

Mulkyar, Poduvarer, Ander, Kovinder, Anvallaver,

Kudaver, Palar, Kovaler, Kopalar,
Amudar, Ayar, Toruver and Idayar.

Taken individually all the thirteen names are more or less synony-
mous, signifying shepherds and herdsmen. Among the names are
Kovalar, Kopalan and Idaiyar. The root "ko”, meaning the cow, has
given rise to several group-names centering in the function of cattle-
rearing. Analysing the data given in the several chronicles, the
colonisation of Jaffna shows two major phases leaving out of count
earlier sporadic infiltrations.
The regions of South India from where the Ceylon colonists came are
the whole of what is modem Kerala and the districts of Ramnad, Tin-
nevelly and Madura. Vaiya Padal, 1 like many such poems, gives a cross-
section of the innumerable groups from these regions that swarmed into
Northern Ceylon,
What is now called Malabar, whether viewed as the hinterland of the
western sea coast or considered as part of the ancient Tamilakam which
embraced most of Kerala, along with the present Tamil districts, seems to
lave been one of the main centres from where an adventurous population
overflowed, attracted by die opportunities of making a living in neighbour-
ing Lanka. Southern Travancore was too near to Northern Jaffna, not
to have made considerable social and
cultural impacts on Jaffna. Names
of villages such as Kovalam and Nagercoil of North Jaffna are reminiscent
of these early migrations, the newcomers naming their new settlements

4. The qnotatjoes from Vaiya Padal extracted above, have already appeared
with translations, In toy paper, ‘The Nalaver” in Tamil Culture--April
*** reproduced with acknowledgements to the
CWmr
 55

after their Travancore homes. If, therefore, there is a good deal of Kerala
culture in the complex of Jaffna life today, this is only consequential.
Rasanayagam, who devotes considerable attention to this particular
aspect of Jaffna, of the opinion that the Malabar immigrants, the
is —
Mdayalathar of the poem, were well settled by the time of the Chola in-
vasion of Ceylon. The Northern Peninsula of that time is believed to
have been under the rule of the ‘Kings of Kalinga dynasty’ who had “us-
urped the Kingdom of Jaffna two centuries earlier and reigned until the
Chola invasions” of the 10th century.
Of the later colonisations, Rasanayagam’s observations, which have
been already alluded are of the 13th and
to, are that these colonisations

14th centuries A.D., and Pandyan Kingdoms in South

when the Chola
India suffered disintegration under the pressure of Vijayanagar kings
before the Muhammadan invasions of South India.
It is difficult to assess exactly the contribution to Ceylonese life of the
Tamils of those early days, as no conclusions are possible without pains-
taking researches into the unwritten traditions and the early Tamil poems
and songs.
Among the Ceylonese historians who have discussed the subject of
Tamil contributions to Ceylon is Mendis. Extracts from his observations
on the subject are reproduced below: 5
"Another stock of people who helped to form the Sinhalese race was
the Dravidians. There is no evidence to show when they first came to
this Island hut they undoubtedly came from the earliest times onwards,

whether as invaders or as peaceful immigrants. Most of them gradually

adopted the Sinhalese language as some of them still do in some of the
coastal districts, and were merged in the Sinhalese population.
"When the Dravidians came to India, they mixed with the earlier
inhabitants as the Aryans did later, and many Indian tribes in turn
adopted their language. The word ‘Dravidian,’ therefore, does not
represent a distinct race but, like the word ‘Aryan’ is a convenient label
to designate those who speak Dravidian languages such as Tamil, Malaya-
lam, Kanarese or Telugu.
“At the time the Aryans entered India, the Dravidians occupied not
only South India, but also the greater part of Northern India, but there is

no definite evidence to show from where they came to these regions. In

5. Mendis, G. C : The Early History of Ceylon, Calcutta, 1940 pp. 10-11.

 56

Baluchistan there exists up to the present day a form of Dravidian speech

called Brahui. As there is hitherto no evidence of any tribe having
migrated out of India by the North-west (Himalayan) passes to settle
elsewhere, some think that the existence of this Dravidian dialect in
Baluchistan is sufficient evidence for inferring that the Dravidians, like
the Aryans, entered India from the North-west.
“There is sufficient evidence to prove that in the early centuries of the
Christian era the Dravidians helped to form the Sinhalese race, but noth-
ing has so far been discovered to show that during that time they made
any noteworthy contribution to the civilisation of Ceylon. Evidence of
is available only from the sixth or the seventh
any cultural influence
century A.D. when the Pallavas began to invade Ceylon. The Dravidian
influencebecame considerable after the invasions and the occupation of
Ceylon by the Colas, and it grew stronger with the Pandya invasions. At
the beginning of the thirteenth century the Dravidians established an
independent kingdom in the North and in the fourteenth century even
exacted tribute from the South. They exercised their cultural influence
mainly through Hinduism which not only became firmly established in
the eleventh century, but also influenced Buddhism to a considerable
extent.
“It is difficult to gauge the extent of Tamil blood among the Sinhalese,
but there is no doubt that it is considerable. Otherwise it is difficult to
explain why the Sinhalese language, not only in its vocabulary but also in
its shows the influence of Tamil so strongly, and why the
structure,
Sinhalese caste system is so similar to the caste system of South India”.

These observations of Mendis throw much light on the problem of

Tamil contributions to Ceylonese society and culture. “To have helped
to form the Sinhalese race”, to quote the words of the author, signifies
nothing less than their assimilation with the Sinhalese both social and
cultural, an imperceptible process over ages of co-existence and contact
in the island under the aegis of Buddhism.
This fusion of the peoples is a phenomenon that occurred on a large
scale in the South of Ceylon and on the Western littoral. Chronicles
of the late Portuguese times, refer to the cultivators as “Bellalas” which
shows that no distinction existed between Tamil Vellala and Sinhalese
Goigama. All were “Bdlalas,” a name inherited from the days when
Tamils in Ceylon were largely cultivators who had merged themselves
into the Sinhalese Goigama. While all other groups are called by their
 7

57

Sinhalese names, the cultivators are termed “Bellalas”. Down, to the

earlv years of the present century, Vellala and Goigama are used
synonymously in Sinhalese writings.
Correspondingly, paddy fields were known by the Tamil name vayal,
a term reminiscent of the Tamil-Sinhalese complex. Field studies in
the south and west coupled with studies in Tamil traditions may reveal
more of Tamil cultural traits in the early and late Middle Ages of Ceylon.
It seems obvious that the Tamil acculturation was a slow and steady
process, all through the past ages.
That it hard to assess Tamil contributions to ancient
historians find
Ceylon due to the subtle nature of Tamil influences which are hard to
is

isolate or discover, whereas Tamil contributions to Ceylon in the later

centuries, in the days of the Pallava, Chola, Pandya and Vijayanagar

dynasties are so conspicuous.
From the days of the Pallava dynasty of South India, from 600 A.D.
to the fall of Vijayanagar in 1600 A.D., is a period of a thousand years
during which the influences of the several South Indian dynasties were
felt in Ceylon. is famous in the history of Ceylon for its
This period
rock-cut cave-temples.These temples, wholly or partly rock-cut, are
not many in number, but are noteworthy monuments.
The temple of Isurumuniya in Anuradhapura (Plate 2, Fig i) is an
architectural construction of outstanding merit, with its panels of stone-
carvings and bas-reliefs of elephants on both sides of a cliff by a pond.
The style is specifically that of the famous Pallava monolithic ratkas of
Mahabalipura. The Nalanda Gedige of Ceylon (Plate 2, Fig ii) in the
neighbourhood of Kandy is the “oldest monument in Ceylon in typical
Dravidian style.”
The Pallava period of Indian history was succeeded by early Chola from
850 to 1100 A.D. and late Chola from 1100 to 1300 A.D. This period,
which comprises also the Pandyan times, was distinguished by Chola
influences. Of structures in late Chola style, Ceylon has several examples.
The Choks occupied Pollonaruwa early in the 1 1th century, and continued

tobe in occupation until Vijayabahu I (1055-1114) expelled them in 1070

AJ). The period witnessed Tamil endowments on the Saiva shrines of
Pollonaruwa. Thirteen temples are known to have existed in the city —
Sivadevaks,5VishnudevalasandoneKaIi kovil. Siva DevalaNo.2 bears
inscriptions of the reign ofRajendra Chola I (1012-1044). A definitely
Pandyan style of temple is the Siva Devala No. 1. These devalas en-
 58

shrined a fine series of Saivite bronzes (early and late Chola) all of which
are in the Colombo National Museum collections. This series of bronzes
are“one with the South Indian castings,” according to Ananda Coomara-
swamy.
The Vfiayanagar period extends from 1350 to 1600 A.D. to which
period belong the Lankatilaka and Gadaladeniya temples within a few
miles of Kandy. In structural detail, corbel decorations are a feature
which is also seen in the Ceylon devalas of the period with corbels of lotus
and plantain flower on the capitals of pillars.
Regarding Tamil influence on the art and architecture of the Sinhalese,
Paranavitana observes in his short study of Sinhalese Art and Culture ,®
“Tamil contact has had little influence on the art and architecture dis-
of the Sinhalese.” He supports the claim with the following
tinctive
argument:
“The Sinhalese had often to dispute their right to the Island with the
Dravidian people of South India, and there have been occasions on which
a prince of Dra vidian race occupied the throne of Anuradhapura which
for over a thousand years was the capital city of the Island. During the
first half of the eleventh century, the greater part of Ceylon was included

in the dominions of the mighty Cola empire. Since about the thirteenth
century, the northern tip and the eastern littoral of the Island have been
peopled by Tamils. This contact, not always hostile, with the Tamils,
has had little influence on the art and architecture distinctive of the Sin-
halese, but a few notable architectural monuments and a scries of superb
bronzes bear witness to the period of T amil s upremacy. A few buildings,
professedly Dravidian in character, owe their existence to Sinhalese rulers
or religious dignitaries who evidently had an admiration for that type of
architecture. The examples of Dravidian art and architecture found in
Ceylon follow the lines of those in South India and scarcely add anything
to what one karris by a study of the great monuments of that art in its
own heme. The distinctive contribution which Ceylon has to make to a
study of the art of India or of Asia as a whole lies therefore in the art of the
Sinhalese.”
It is no doubt true that the Dravidian and the Sinhalese art and archi-
tecture progressed on separate lines. The magnificent contribution of

6. Paamavjtana. S : Sinhalese Art end Culture, Information Department, Ceykm.

 59

Sinhalese art to the art of Asia is obvious too. This nevertheless does
not detract from the contribution of the Tamil to Ceylonese art, the

highlights of which are dealt with in some detail in our chapter on

"Architecture and Art.”
When wc come to the later period of the Kings of Rayigam and Kotte
from 1373 to 1509, Tamil influences seem to be ascendant in the counsels
of the court. An interesting inscription in respect of the adoption of
Tamil words with their cultural contents is the Oruvil Sannas, alluded
to already —a royal grant by King Parakramabahu VIII (1484-1518)
bestowing the village of Oruvila in Aturugiri Korale to two Brahmin
priests.

Several aspects of Tamil contribution to Ceylon were analysed by Rev.

Fr. Xavier S. Taninayagam in the course of a public address in Colombo
in August, 1955 under the auspices of the Tamil Cultural Society. 7
The following paragraphs reproduced here will serve as a summary of his
arguments:
"The relations of the Sinhalese Kings withNagadipa, with the Chera,
Chola, Fandya Kings of South India, their dynastic alliances, their treaties
and even their wars and their intrigues are evidence of a fraternal rivalry
that existed between these neighbouring kingdoms. There is a tendency
to exaggerate these wars and to portray these cultures as if they were per-
petually in conflict. Such a portrayal is one of the dangers of history.
The truth is one well read in Ceylonese and South Indian history,
that to
these conflicts seem like the internal conflicts of kindred peoples. The
wars of the Tamils against the Sinhalese are not any more numerous or
hostile than the wars among the Tamil kingdoms
themselves. At the
time the Portuguese landed on this Island, there is ample evidence
for
the honoured place Tamil had at the court of Kotte
and for the Tamil
schools that the Portuguese found in the Western
Province.
When printing was introduced into this Island for the first time, the
Dutch published books in both Tamil and Sinhalese tongues. A copy
of a Tamil book, published in Colombo
in 1754 by the Dutch Pastor
Bronsvdd, refers in its dedication to the Tamil language spoken within
the greater area of this Island. ( Maxima cumjhujus insulae parte
Tamdice loquentem). Robert Knox and the Dutch despatches speak

7. Taninayagam j X.S : Tamil Culture; Its Past, its Present and its Future with,
special reference to Ceylon, Tamil Culture:, Vol. IV. No. 4, October 1955.
 60

of Tamil townships and Tamil-speaking people of the Kandyan

Kingdom.
“The comparative study of the Tamil and the Sinhalese languages, of
the literature and grammar of the two languages, of place-names,* of the
drama, the dance, the architecture, the sculpture peculiar to the two
cultures of this Island, reveal to what limits they influenced each
other.
“Anthropological surveys have shown the extent to which the common
shared by the populations that speak the two
racial characteristics are

languages, and history testifies to the shifting of populations from one

kingdom to another and to the sections of people that have changed one
language for the other. The laws, the caste system and the patterns of
social structure reveal very many common elements. For the existence
and interpenetration of these cultures, there is no better evidence than a
Kathirgamam, held sacred by the Hindus, Buddhists
religious shrine like
and Muslims being located in the southernmost part of Ceylon, and a
religious shrine of the Buddhists located in Nainativu, a northernmost
outpost of the Island held sacred by Hindus also.

“The existence of two different religions did not always prevent the
patronage that kings of one persuasion extended to the religion which was
not theirs, did not prevent the patronage and employment of Saivite
Brahmins at the Sinhalese Courts, did not prevent marriage alliance of
Sinhalese Kings with Tamil Saivite Queens; did not prevent the teaching
of Tamil along with Sinhalese, Pali and Sanskrit at the more famous
pirivmas as related in the Gira Sandesa (15th century):

“In the beautiful and prosperous monastery,

Groups of scholars versed in prosody, rhetoric and grammar.

8. “Tamil place-names are found mostly along the seacoast and in the Anu-
radhapura, Chikm and Puttalam districts. Though there are no indigenous
Tamils living along the South of Colombo, the Tamil origin of most of the
present Inhabitants is evident from the fairly large number of Tamil
place-names. The “Ge” name of the people too attest to their Tamil
origin. The word “matei” meaning in Tamil a '‘mountain*’ or ‘‘hill” is
found in even the central parts of the Island. They are come across in
literature, produced many centuries before the opening up of plantations, and!
stow tint the Tamil element in the composition of the Sinhalese is far
greater than is usually conceded. Ranmalaya, Kotmale and Gilimale are
some of the examples.”
; “Some observations on the study of
(Ferera, B.S Sinhalese Place-names”,
The CeyUn Hittoricd Journal, Vol. II, 1953, pp. 241-250.
 61

Seated scattered, recall the sight of the ancient sages

Reading poetry and drama in Sanskrit, Magadhi (Pali), Elu and
Tamil.”

“There was a time when Buddhism counted many Tamils among its
followers even in Ceylon, and Tamil Buddhist monks contributed in no
small measure to the enrichment of both Tamil literature and Pali litera-
ture, Viharas were established in the Tamil-speaking areas of both
Ceylon and South India, and Tamil monks came to teach as well as to
learn in the Sinhalese kingdom. It will always remain a source of pride to
us that the greatest, if not the only classical epic of Theravada Buddhism,
exists in the Tamil language. The poetry of Manimekhalai (2nd Century,
AD.) has been forgotten by scholars because of its didactic and doctrinal
appeal, but remains one of the finest jewels of Tamil poetry.”
Among the greatest of Tamil cultural contributions to Ceylon is the
contribution made by the early Tamils to the religious system of the
Island, introducing the worship of gods of the Hindu Pantheon which will
be separately dealt with in a later chapter. It was a contribution worthy
of as much recognition as the Roman Catholicism founded by the Portu-
guese or the Dutch Reformed Church that developed in the wake of the
Dutch occupation of Ceylon.
A major contribution of the Tamils slowly being revealed is in the
field of music and dance. Of all writers, Saratchandra 9 has written on
Tamil influences on Ceylonese dance and music, aspects separately
described in the chapter on Dance in Ceylon.

9. Saratchandra, E.R : The Sinhalese Folk Play and the Modem Stage, 1953,
 VII

THE GODS OF CEYLON*

Before Buddhism became the established religion of Ceylon, several

popular cults prevailed in the Island, features of which are evident even
today. There are legends of the surviving folk cults: some have bee®

traced back to the days of KingPanduvasudeva (445-414 B.C.), successor

of Vijaya (483-445 B.C.), and Pandukabaya (377-307 B.C.), the king who
“year by year had sacrificial offerings made to the Yakkahs’’. 1 Folk
cults with their ceremonials and rituals found popular favour and, whether
in India or in .Ceylon, became integrated with the religion of the land
Ceylon having been Hindu before becoming Buddhist, since the time of
King Devanampiyya Tissa (247-207 B.C.), the Ceylonese people turned
to the gods for all worldly needs and problems, aside from treading the

path of spiritual salvation, guided by the teachings of the Buddha. The

gods are supplicated with appropriate offerings and prayers in numerous
shrines distributed all over Ceylon, most of them of great antiquity.

Folk religion as it prevails in Ceylon today may be broadly divided

into two classes,— (i) folk cults of the Yakkahs and the spirits and (ii) the

worship of the High Gods of the Hindu Pantheon attended with rituals

and ceremonials distinctive of the Island. The two categories of folk

religion developed on different lines. The priests of the gods are the
Kapuralas and the priests of the Yakkahs, Kattadiyas. While the gods are

installed in sacred devalayas the spirits are invoked in temporary struc-

The High Gods of Ceylon are Vishnu,

tures erected for the occasion.
Saman, Vibhishana, Aiyanar, Kataragama (Skanda), and goddess Pattini
who represent the main divinities.
Vishnu is accorded a status second to no other deity in Ceylon. Ht
is the protector of the Island, — the guardian deity, and the protectai
of the religion of the Buddha, who appointed Vishnu to guard his religion

and put him in charge of Ceylon. The connection of Vishnu with th<

Island is the theme of many a legend. The Satara-devcda-devipmati

‘The study is one covered in my contribution to the Nehru Abhinandat

Oremth, 1949, under the title "The Hindu Gods of Ceylon.”
1. —
Mahavamsa Ch. X., 86-87.

62
 63

narrates that Vishnu came to Ceylon and overcame the Yakkahs. Alone, of
all Vishnu supported the Buddha in his struggle against Mara.
the gods,
“
He brought a charmed thread to heal the divi-das” of King Vijaya, and
created a golden cock for his war against the Asuras. The Vishnuvidiya-
km, describing Vijaya’s arrival in Ceylon, says that Vishnu dived into
the waters of the flood that covered the world and planted beneath the
waters a lotus seed, which sprouted up into the ‘Bamba’ world, where it
bore a flower with five petals, in which Mahabamba found five robes.
This is a reference to the Ceylonese Buddhist legend that in the lotus
five sets of priests’ outfit were found for distribution to each of the five
3
Buddhas on the day of his enlightenment.
Mention is made of Vishnu measuring the universe in three strides.
In one of the Buddhist legends he is invoked as Narayana: he holds Rama’s
arrow and a golden bow in the right hand; he has a blue body, a blue robe,
and on his neck, a flower-garland. The Vaikuntha-alankaraya describes
his place in Vaikuntha and relates that he was born in Saka era 712 in the
month of Vesik from the hard wood of a red sandalwood tree. This
alludes to the image of Vishnu at Devundara (Dondra) Devalaya in South
Ceylon, said to have been made from a log of red sandalwood that had
been washed up ashore. The Devundara Devalaya is described, and the
‘ten incarnations’ mentioned. The latter may today be seen prominently

sanctum sanctorum of the magnificent structure of the

displayed in the
new abode of the god at Devundara (Dondra).
One of the legends describes Rama as shooting Yakkahs or Asuras with
his arrows at dawn on the Udaya-giri or the eastern mountain. In a
number of legends, he is invoked in rites of exorcism. His bow is des-
cribed in ran-dunu-martgale , verses in exorcism which invoke the potency
of his bow, with its musical qualities, overcoming spells and shattering
stone and iron, Paravi Sandesa and a number of Kavyas are addressed
to Uppuluvan’s sanctuary in Devindura. Vishnu has entered so much
into the lives of the Ceylonese people that Vishnu ashtakas or benedictory
verses are sung at Sinhale esweddings, invoking divine blessings on the
couple.
The guardian god of Samanta-kuta or Adam’s Peak (Sri Pada), Saman,
is one of the ‘seven devas’. In the legends he is described as having placed

2, Barnett, L.D : An Alphabetical Guide to Sinhalese Polk Lore, 1917.

the Buddha's hair-relic in a jewelled dagoba at Mahiyangana, the oldest

of Ceylon’s dagobas, beneath another containing the Buddha’s collar

bone. It is said that, on visiting Ceylon, the Buddha gave Saman the
hair relic. He is god of the province of Sabaix-
in particular the guardian
gamuwa, within which the sacred Sri Pada, the Adam’s Peak is situated.
Invoked in rites of exorcism, he is described in Toml-paliupata, which
is the name for a series of offerings prescribed in exorcisms of
illness, invoking the Yakkahs to descend into the turmeric-washed
thread. In popular conception, Saman is Lakshmana, the brother of
Rama.
The presiding deity of Kelaniya in the devalaya to Vibhishana stands
dose to the Kelaniya dagoba. During his second visit to Ceylon, the
Buddha is said to have reconciled the two warring Naga princes and made
a gift of the jewelled throne of the Nagas to the Buddha. In Selalihitti-
Sandesa, a message is sent through a sslalihini or hill -maimby the Prime-
minister of King Parakramabahu VI to god Vibhishana praying for a
male heir to the King.
Aiyanar is a village god in Ceylon as also a forest deity protecting
benighted and weary travellers in elephant infested forests. He is identical
with the Hari-hara Putra of the Hindu legends, son of Vishnu in his
disguise as Mohini and the god, Siva, who yielded to the charms of Vishnu’s
female disguise.
Travellers through lonely tracts of the North Central Province often
break twigs and sprigs of leaves and suspend them from the fork of a
cross-stick or let them hang from a creeper. This is their humble offering
to the god Aiyanar to grant them safe passage through the forests. The
faith in the protective Both the horse and the
powers of Aiyanar is great.
elephant are the Vahana (the vehicles) of the god and are prominently
installed in Aiyanar temples like the ancient and popular temple at
Madampai, well worth a visit for its spirited statuary of the horse
(Plate 3, Fig. i). From Madura in the Pandyan kingdom, Aiyanar is said to
have taken sail and landed in Jaffna, whence he rode away on his white
elephant. Vami Puvatki narrates the story that he came to Ceylon in
the days of King Bhuvanekabahu. He is one of the principal gods of
the Vanni, the extensive extent of north Ceylon between the Jaffna
peninsula and the North Central Province.
Skanda is worshipped as Kataragama Deviyo in the shrine of the
village of the same name in south-east Ceylon. It is the main centre
 65

of Jus worship in Ceylon and also in shrines distributed all over the Island.
Nestling in the wilds of south-east Ceylon on the banks of the Mertik
Gangs, no shrine in Ceylon has a more magnificent natural setting than

Kataragama.
According to Sinhalese tradition reproduced in Kanda Upata, on the
birth of Skanda, King Dutugemunu in the first century B.C. rebuilt and
richly endowed the forest shrine of Kataragama, offering it to god
Skanda whose favour enabled him to march against the Tamil King
Elara and to re-establish Sinhala monarchy at Anuradhapura. His action
was the result of a warning to the King conveyed in a dream not to embark
oat a war against Elara unless he had first secured the aid of the god of

Kataragama. The legend is that Goddess Parvati in a creative mood

once produced seven sons. God Siva clasped them all in one embrace.
One of them, however, escaped .The other six who were hugged together,
. .

became ore body with six faces and twelve hands, riding a peacock. The
s<m who escaped is known to Ceylon as the Kadavara devata, one of the
many deities of the Vanni.
Kataragama Deviyo is said to have two wives, the celestial Devayani and
the mortal Valliamma. The story is that a Veddah of the Kovil Vanname
clan of the Dambana Veddahs, found Valli as a child in the forests of
Kataragama and reared her until Skanda married her in the assumed guise
of a Veddah. The Valli Male narrates the story of Skanda’scoming
in the disguise of an ascetic, his wooing and the marriage celebrated at
Kataragama at the annual celebration in the month of Esala. There is a
separate shrine room in almost every Buddhist temple dedicated to god
Kataragama. In the Kandy perahera, the god has a conspicuous place.
Skanda is the foremost of the gods of the Jaffna Peninsula.
Pattini is the great goddess of Ceylon. 3 Both in Ceylon and South
India, the cult of goddess Pattini has flourished since the time when
Senguttuvan, the mighty Chera King of the second century A.D. consecrat-
ed the first Pattini temple, with an image of the goddess sculptured from
a block of stone brought by the king in person from the holy Himalaya.
At this first installation of Pattini’s image in South India, were present,
the kings of the neighbouring countries including Lanka represented by
no less a person than King Gajabahu (174-156 A.D.). On return from

3. For an account of "Pattini Cult as a Socio-Religious Institution” see,

—
SpoKa Zeylanica, Vol. 25, Part II Ethnological Survey of Ceylon, 1950.
 66

South India, the King dedicated temples to the goddess, inaugurating the
Pattini cult in Ceylon. The cult found a receptive soil in Ceylon, where
many Pattini legends grew and gained currency.
An-Keliya Upatha relates Pattini’s birth in amango and her marriage
with Palanga. Strolling in the orchard one day, Palanga climbs up a
ladder and tries to hook a flower for his wife. He fails to pluck it. Hi*
wife comes to his help with a hook of sandal wood. But the prongs of the
wooden hook get entangled and pull each other. Palanga’s stick snaps
and Pattini and her friends dance with joy. The idea of two prongs of
a hook tugging at each other, has developed into the rural ritual ceremonial
of An-Keliya, the ritual play of pulling at hooked sambhur horns.
The contest is now the most popular form in Ceylon of propitiating
the goddess. Villagers form themselves into two parties —the udupifo
and the yatapila, the 'upper* and the 'lower* side. Each party has a
pair of sambur horns which is consecrated in temporary shrine rooms and
awaits the time of the contest. When taken out, the horns are inter-
locked tight and are well adapted to the tug-of-war. All assembled start

pulling from the yatapila side. The weaker horn gives way and snaps.
The victorious horn is reclaimed from its trappings, wrapped in silk,

garlanded, held aloft under a canopy and carried in procession over the
whole village to resounding shouts of the crowd.
There are separate shrine rooms dedicated to the goddess in many
a Buddhist temple. One of the devalas of Kandy is dedicated to
goddess Pattini and the goddess lias a favoured place in the grand annual

perahera. In the Tamil setting of the Eastern Province of Ceylon, the

goddess is worshipped under the more familiar Tamil name of Kannaki
Amman,
The Sinhalese month of Esala (about August) is the month of annual
festivals at Ceylonese devalas. The celebrations take the form of
peraheras, ceremonial processions with much pomp and pageantry. The
foremost of all peraheras is the Kandy perahera which is a gorgeous
and harmonious combination of the five peraheras of the Buddhist
Temple of the Tooth, and the devalas of Nat ha, Maha Vishnu, Katara-
gama and goddess Pattini.
The ancient devalayas or temples to the gods have a wide distribution
in different parts of Ceylon. Among the ancient shrines are Tiruketi-
twarara near Mannar on the North, Munneswaram temple in the vicinity
ofChilaw on the West, Koneswara temple at the Swami Rock, Trinccmalee
 67

ja tbe East,and the Katragama temple in the south east 4 Besides .

these well-known shrines there are numerous temples to god Skanda

in tbe Northern and Eastern Provinces. The shrines dedicated to Siva
the high place given to the tenets of Saiva
and Saivite deities testify to
Siddanta philosophy and to Saivaism which is the main doctrinal faith
of the Hindus of Ceylon.
The traditions at the back of these shrines are of high antiquity. The
Timketiswaram temple is sung of in the hymns of Saivite saints, Tirugnana
S^rp hirndhiir and Sundara Murti of the sixth century A.D. The legends
of the Munneswaram temple represent Sri Rama as having worshipped
at this shrine during his sojourn in Lanka. Reputed for the worship of
the Naga is the Nagapooshani Amman temple of the island of Nainativu
off the coast of Jaffna.
With the Sinhalese Buddhists, the cult of the gods assumes a mode of
worship distinct from that of the Hindus. Gods are worshipped by them
not so much for spiritual salvation as for help in the difficult situations
that faces all men in the material world.
There is a difference too in the attitude of prayer. The highest form
of salutation is reserved for the Buddha. The palms are held together
in anjali pose and held before the forehead, bending the head forward
in a posture of adoration referred to in the Pali texts as “Abhivadctva” or
“Anjalin Panametva Namaskaretva”. Gods are worshipped in the atti-
tude of "Namaskara” or “Abhivadana”, with hands in anjali pose placed
in front of the chest and not raised to the forehead as in the worship of the
Buddha.

4. Paul Fieri* gives a graphic description of these ancient shrines:

"Long before the arrival of Vijaya, there was in Lanka five recognised
isvarams of Siva which claimed and received the adoration of all India.
These were Tiruketiswaram near Mahatittaj Munneswaram dominating
Salavatta and the Pearl Fishery: Tondeswaram near Mantota; Tirukoneswa-
ram opposite the great bay of Koddiyar and Nakuleswaram near Kankesan-
turai. Their situation close to those ports cannot be the result of accident or
caprice, and was probably determined by the concourse of a wealthy mer-
cantile population whose religious wants called for attention.’’ JRAS (C.B.),

Vol. XXVI. No 70, pp. 17-18.

Pans of the sunken Hindu temple at Swami Rock, Trincomalee, have been
recently discovered and photographed in the course of the under-water
exploration in 1956, by Arthur C. Clarke and Mike Wilson (The Reefs of
Taproiane, 1957).
 68

One of the many cultural contributions of the sacred god-shrines to

Ceylonese life is the part played by them throughout the Middle Ages
in the field of fine arts like music and dance. Sacred dances were a feature
of the devalaya. The Vibhishana Devalaya of Kelaniya and the Sams®
Devalaya of Ratnapura are conspicuous in this respect. The dances
were an artistic homage-offering to the gods. Each devalaya maintained
its famil y of dancers settled on land held
in service tenure. Some of

these still survive as service tenures attached to the Ratnapura Sanaa

devalaya, in the best traditions of the South Indian temples, bestowing
gifts of lands held by the dancers as inams, for
giving performances at
the temple festivals. The an was the same as the art of the Devadasis
in South Indian temples, a subject on which more will be said in the
chapter on Ceylonese dances.
 :

VIII

THE BOND OF BUDDHISM WITH INDIA

(i) The Vesak and the Poson.

The greatest of all links between India and Ceylon is Buddhism. The
spread of Buddhism in Ceylon was an event no less of historical than of
cultural and spiritual significance. The history of Ceylon before Tissa
(247-207 B.C.) in whose reign the religion was introduced in the Island is a
jumble of history and legend, but it is with Tissa and the introduction of

Buddhism that the genuine history of Ceylon begins. With the expan-
sion of Buddhism, Ceylon entered on an era of intense cultural activity

which in time has brought her into close relations with the world outside
and raised her to a position of pre-eminence in the entire Buddhist world.
Though India ceased long ago to be a Buddhist country, the spiritual
bond between India and Ceylon still manifests itself in the high honour
and veneration that both countries accord to Buddhist festivals and the
sacred relics of Buddhism.
The Vesak is a 'thrice sacred’ day to the Buddhists, —a day of days, the
most colourful of the whole year. The Vesak full moon witnessed 2500
years ago a new-born babe laid in the shade of the Sal trees in the garden
of Lumbini. It was also on this day that he attained enlightenment sitting

in deep mediation under the Bodhi tree at Gaya. It was on this day too
that the Buddha passed away into Nibbana. To Ceylon, the day has yet
another remembrance. It was on this day according to the Mahavamsa

that the foundation of the Sinhalese Kingdom was laid with the landing in
Lanka of Prince Vijaya from Lata in the north of India. It has thus to
the Ceylonese a four-fold sacredness and is celebrated all through Ceylon
with the greatest rejoicings.
Illuminated pandals are erected on the main roads and crossways in all
cities and villages life of the Buddha and
of Ceylon featuring events in the
historic scenes like the landing of Prince Vijaya. Damsalas are set upon
crowded thoroughfares to serve light refreshments free to all comers.
The illuminations are symbolic of the light of the Dhamma. Devotees
recall the Buddha’s last message to Ananda and the other disciples when
he was passing into Mahaparinibbana

69
 1

70

‘All composite matter is impermanent;

The Buddhas only teach the way l!’
The exuberance of Vesak gives place to the comparatively calm atmo-
sphere of the festival of Poson. It recalls the solemnity and grace of the
scene, when Mahinda and his disciples met King Devanampiyya Tissa
oa
the hill beyond Amuradhapura, which has since been called after his nar^
—Mihintale.
Poson commemorates the momentous significance of the introduction
of the Buddhism into the Island. It was, according to tradition, the
sequel of the deliberations of the three Buddhist Councils. The first,
called Dhamma Scmjayana , was held at Rajagriha in 543 B.C., three
months after theBuddha’s Mahaparinibbana. At this great convocation,
the Dhamma and the Vinaya were recited and classified by the Arahant
Thants, the direct disciples of the Buddha. The second was held at
Vesali in the reign of King Kalasoka, one hundred years after the Buddha’s
passing away. The third was held at Pataliputra (Patna) 236 years after
the Mahaparinibbana under the presidency of Moggaliputta Tissa Thera,
—
who enjoyed king Asoka’s patronage, a Council of great consequence to
the world, leading to wide-spread propagation of the religion.
Asoka (274-237 B.C.) coming of a line of warlike monarchs, began his

reign with ideas of military glory and territorial expansion. The Kalinga
war, however, in the eighth year of his reign, marked the turning point of
his life, awakening in the king’s mind, after his victory, a sense of the utter
futility of war and bloodshed. So, as H.G. Wells remarks, “Asoka was
the only military monarch on record who abandoned warfare after
1
victory.” His life thereafter was dedicated to
works of piety. "Amidst
the tens of thousands of names of monarchs that crowd the columns of
history, their Majesties and Graciousnesses, and Serenities and Royal
Highnesses and the like, the name of Asoka shines, and shines almost
alone, a star. From the Volga to Japan, his name is still honoured; China,
Tibet and even India, though she has left his doctrine, preserve the tradi-
tion of his greatness. More living men cherish his memory today that
have ever heard the names of Constantine or Charlemagne”. 3
Following the deliberations of the Third Council, the Emperor Asoka,
on the advice of the Maha Thera Moggaliputta Tissa, despatched missions

1 . —
Last words of the Buddha: Diga Ntkaya Mahaparinibbana Sutta.
2. WeUs, H. G. A Short History of the World, Edition 1953, p, 103.
:

3. Nehru, Jawaharlal The Discovery of India, Fourth Edition, 1956,

: p. 124.
 spread the religion. Each mission consisted of five Theras. Mahinda,
“distinguished above all others for intelligence, handsomeness of person

and grace of expression,” had received his higher ordination, the Upasam-
pwkt at the age of twenty and he was marked out to lead the mission to
Lanka.
Asoka’s message to King Devanampiyya Tissa of Ceylon was this:
“I have taken refuge in the Buddha, his religion and his
Sangha. Ruler of men, imbue thy mind with the conviction of the
truth of these supreme blessings and, with unfeigned faith, do thou
also take refuge in this salvation.”

Setting out from Asokarama at Pataliputra, Mahinda first visited his

mother Vedisa Devi at Vedisagiri and had a last look at her. With him
went the Arahant Theras, Itthiya, Uttiya, Sambala, Bhaddasala and the
gifted Arahant Samanera Sumana and the lay disciple Bhanduka, a grand
nephew of Vedisa Devi. Receiving her son and his companions with all
happiness, she led them to the lovely Vedisagiri. Departing from Vedi-
sagiri and rising up in the air, as the legend says, they alighted at Ambastala
on “the loveliest peak of Mihintale, which, rising suddenly from the plain,
overlooks the city of Anuradhapura.”
Mahinda, according to tradition, arrived in Ceylon in 246 B.C. He
confronted the King
on the hallowed spot just when the King was about to
participate in the sports of the day.
The dialogue that ensued between the two on their first meeting
impressed Mahinda with the King’s intelligence: (Maha. Ch. XIV,
16-21):

“What is this tree?” asked Mahinda.

“A Mango,” replied the King.
“Besides this, are there any other mango-trees?”
“There are many.”
“Besides this mango and those other mangoes, are there any other
trees in the world?”
“Yes Sir, there are many trees, but they are not mangoes.”
"Besides the other mangoes, and the trees that are not mango-trees,
is there any other?”

"Yes Sir, this one.”

“Well done,” cried Mahinda.
“Wise indeed art thou,”
Mihintale today is only a ruined monument to one who did more for
 .

72

Ceylon than any other, one who himself dedicated to Ceylon, living tfe
life of an ascetic, in a carved recess of hard rock. To visit the "Bed $
Mahinda,” as the bare rock recess is reputedly known, is a pilgrimags
which no one who visits Ceylon should omit, though one has to climb tfe;
1840 steps which have been hewn out of the rock to reach the holy spot,
This Poson day is celebrated with elaborate ceremony at Anuradhapwa,
attracting pilgrims from all over Ceylon. Peraheras and processions mark
the celebrations in Colombo and elsewhere in Ceylon.
Poson is a reminder for all time of Ceylon’s social and cultural ties wit|
India, of a spiritual and cultural tradition, common to both Ceylon and
India.
Mahinda’s arrival was followed by the coming of his sister Sanghaxnttta
with a sapling of the sacred Bo-tree, and its ceremonial consecration at
Anuradhapura and the inauguration by her of the order of Bhikunnis a
Ceylon. As Poson celebrates the coming of Mahinda, the Sanghamkta
Day in Ceylon celebrates the coming of Sanghamitta. 4

(ii) The Sacred Tooth Relic.

The ninth year of King Kiti Sri Mevan of Ceylon, 362 A.D., saw the

arrival in Ceylon from Kalinga of the Tooth Relic of the Buddha. The
King of Kalinga, in whose personal care the Relic had lain, was in fear
of an imminent invasion from his hostile neighbour. Summoning his

4. Buddhism as the national religion of Ceylon dates from Mahinda’s mission.

Nevertheless the Island was not totally without some Buddhist influence
before the time of Devanampiyya Tissa. This is what we arc led to
believe from a variety of sources. The Mahavamsa speaks of three visits
of the Buddha to Lanka. The first to the "delightful Mahanaga garden”—
the site of the later Mahiyangana; the second to Nagadipa, in the North
West of the Island, and the third to the country of Kalyani, the modem
Kelaniya. At Mahanaga "the devas assembled, and in their assembly the
Master preached them the doctrine”. The tradition is pan of the
chronicles of the sacred Mahiyangana stupa believed to enshrine “a
handful of halts” the Buddha bestowed on the prince of devas, Mahasumana
Sumsroidww mountain (Adam’s Peak). At Nagadipa "the Lori
established the three refuges” and "the moral precepts”. On his visit to
KaljMU, "the Teacher, compassionate to the whole world, preached the
doctrine and left the traces of his footsteps on Samanakuta as he departed,
_ Taese and other indications may best be interpreted as indicative of
Buddhist contacts between India and Ceylon before Mahinda. The
chroni cle relating to Asoka’s exhortation to Devanampiyya Tissa on the
ratters second consecration as king to adhere to the doctrine of the Buddha
{J-Hpavimsa. 12-56 and Mahavamsa XI,
34-35) has been regarded as
sustaining the idea that Buddhism was not unknown to Ceylon before
Mahinda s That the latter was the fruition and culmination of
mission..
easier sporadic influences, would seem to be a justifiable conclusion.
 73

daughter, Princess Hemamali, the King commissioned her to take over

the Relic, escorted by her husband, to Ceylon for safe-keep there. Dis-
guised as pilgrims, the royal personages found their way to Ceylon with
the Relic concealed in the coils of the princess’ coiffure. The King of
Ceylon received the Relic with all the reverence due to it. A colourful
version of the scene of its reception in Ceylon may be seen depicted on the
walls of the modem extensions to the ancient Buddhist temple at Kelaniya.
Successive monarchs continued to bestow reverence and personal atten-
tion on the sacredrelic and they housed it in a shrine which formed part

of the royal palace. With the establishment of the Sinhalese Kingdom

in Kandy, the Tooth Relic found a permanent home in the Dalada Mali-
gavda, at its capital city. The festival of the Tooth Relic temple is the
occtsion for the gorgeous perahera annually held at Kandy.

(iti) The Sacred Relics of Sanchi.

India signalised her attainment of independence by adopting the

Asoka Chakra on her tricolour and the Asoka Lion Capital as the State
Emblem. The steady march of India towards the Welfare State, founded
on peace, tolerance and equality of man, preached and practised by
Emperor Asoka, has justified the selection of the symbol and emblem.
Among the earliest acts of free India was the recovery of the sacred
relics of Sariputta and Ala ha Mogallana from the British Museum where
they had been resting ever since their discovery by Sir Alexander Cun-
ningham in 1887 at Sanchi. In alliance with India, Ceylon played a lead-
ing role and bore a worthy part in the negotiations. It was my great
privil-
ege to be personally associated with the reception and safe-custody
of the
rdics in the Colombo National Museum from the summer of 1949 to
1950, when they were handed over with due ceremonial observances to
the late Dr, Chakravarti, then Director-General of Archaeology in India,
who had been deputed by the Government of India to bring them over.
During their two expositions, the relics received the homage of millions
of Buddhists from all over Ceylon. I may be excused for drawing upon
my personal reminiscences of the great occasion which was celebrated
with demonstrative enthusiasm both in Ceylon and
in India.
On an evening in the month of March, 1955, we stood at the
Colombo Fort Railway Station awaiting eagerly the special train that
was
to bring a portion of the relics gifted by
India to Ceylon. In many ways,
 74

animated scene on the arrival of the relics by

it recall ed the m
direct from England in March 1949, when the Premier, the Rt

11001)16 D. S. Senanayake received the relics which were conduct**}

gorgeous perahera from the harbour to the Colombo Nations!

in a
Museum. The overland railway journey of March, 1955, bringing

over to the island Ceylon’s share of the relics, was marked by ceremony
and joyous greetings at all halting stations. At the Colombo Railway
Station, the reception prepared by the Mahabodhi Society was «,
impressive and solemn one. As and the time drew
the crowd swelled

near for the arrival of the train, there was a sudden change of
weather. Rain-clouds overcast the sky and it blew a strong gale,
A downpour of rain seemed imminent. It was at this moment

that the trainmajestically steamed in. There were a few drops of gentle

rain and the crowd calmed down. It seemed to me like Nature in her own

way holding a reception for the holy relics. The Premier, Rt. Hon’ble
Sir John Kotelawala, received the relic casket solemnly. After due
ceremonials had been held and concluded, a great procession started onto
way to the Mahabodhi Society’s headquarters at Maligakande. The
procession had hardly formed when Nature again blew a blast stronger
this time. The procession followed the prescribed route, the threatening
weather notwithstanding, nor did it rain until the Relics had reached then
haven of rest. The rain which had been holding off so far then came
down in all its might, as though to round off the day’s proceedings.
A parallel scene was presented in India on a day in the February of

1956. The occasion was the opening for exhibition of the holy relics

in New Delhi.
The reliquary containing the relics of Moggaliputta was generously
Set apart as Ceylon’s share. These relics, which came to Ceylon on the
ere of the Buddha Jayanti had a special value and significance for Ceylon,
for it was at the Third Buddhist Council at Pataliputra in 307 B.C., pre-

sided over by T5ssa Moggaliputta Thera, that the decision was taken as

tradition reports, to send Buddhist missions to “bear Buddhism beyond

the borders of its homeland.”
In accepting the relics. Sir Edwin Wijeratne called the gift ‘India’s
magnificent gesture’, for which Ceylon would always remain grateful and
hoped that it would further cement friendship and foster great under-
standing between India and Ceylon.
The message of the Sanchi relics cannot be better expressed than in
 75

the words of Premier Nehru at their ceremonial reception at Palam air-

part; “In this auspicious year, we have had the fortune to be able to bring
fcyfe home. Their home really is not a
these sacred relics to their old
wherever they are honoured in the hearts of
particular place but, rather,

the people who honour the message they convey.” “I hope that the real
message they convey will again become vital in our minds and hearts, and
wherever they are, they will bring good fortune and wellbeing to the
people.”
His Excellency Sri B. N. Chakravarti, India’s High Commissioner in
Ceylon, in the course of his address at the public meeting at the Inde-
pendence Hall, Colombo, traced the history of the relics and concluded
with these words:
cc
We in India like you are celebrating Buddha Jayanti
this year and it augurs well that these sacredhave now been restored
relics

to the Buddhist world on the eve of the J ayanti celebrations Let us today .

offer our humble obeisance to the great saint Moggaliputta Tissa who

guided no less a person than Asoka in the path of virtue preached by the
Buddha.”'
The Buddha Jayanti celebrated in India and everywhere in the
Buddhist world, had a significance of its own
for India. Apart from the
inherent sacredness of the occasion, it
was India’s opportunity to honour
one of her greatest sons, looked upon as one of the ten incarnations of
Godhead, whose teachings need to be revived today in a world tom by
conflicts and tensions. India may not be a Buddhist country in the
sense in which Burma or Ceylon or Thailand is, but the Buddha’s sublime
teachings are enshrined in the
minds and hearts of the Indian people.
These teachings have not been without effect in enabling free India to
formulate her policy of a Welfare State at peace with the rest of the
world and bound in friendship and amity with it.

(jo) Buddhism in South India

The medieval history of Ceylon is bound up closely with South India

where Buddhism once prevailed and which contains the ancient sites
of
Aianta, Amaravati, Nagarjunikonda, Jaggayapettah, and Goli which were
prominent centres of Indian Buddhism. Data for the history of

1. A short summary of the recent events relating to the Sanchi Relics appears
m my paper in the Buddha Jayanti Number or Ceylon Today , Information
Department, Ceylon, May 1956.
 76

Buddhism and its functioning in South India, are embodied in a variety

of
original sources, epigraphical and literary.
First of these are the Edicts of Asoka. Edicts 2 and 13 of the
Minor
Rock Edicts make mentionof seven regions, Andhra, Parindra, Coda,
T
Pandya, Satyaputra, Keralaputra, and amrapami in the South. Of these
seven, Andhra and Parindra formed part of Asoka’s dominions where
Buddhism, and sponsored religion, must have
as the officially accepted
prevailed. The came
other five under the sphere of Buddhist influence,
spread by monk-teachers and missionaries coining from outside.
Mahisamanda (Mysore) and Vanavasa or Vanavasi (North Kama
),

were spheres of the missionary activities of Mahadeva and Rakkhita

respectively. Vanavasi figures in the andent chronides of Ceylon, for a
delegation to Ceylon was sent from there at the consecration of the Great
Stupa of Anuradhapura. “The great Thera Chandagutta came from
Vanavasa country with eighty thousand ascetics” at the consecration of
the Great Stupa (Ruvanvalisaya) on the invitation of King Duttuge-
raunu (101-77 B.C.), Maha, Ch. XXIX, 42-43).'
As already narrated, after the Third Council, held in Pataliputra
Mahinda led a mission to Ceylon accompanied by Samanera Sumana,
Itthiya, Uttiya, Sambala and Bhaddasala. Buddhism thus propagated in
Ceylon in the reign of King Devanampiyya Tissa (247-207 B.C.), seems
to have had its influence in South India for a number of Buddhist wham
arose in South India at the same time. These, according to Indian tradi-
tions, are attributed to the work of Mahinda. Kaveripattinam, once a
great emporium and port of call, is conspicuous among the great centres
of Buddhism in South India. Here lived and worked a number of
eminent Buddhist teachers.
Among literary sources of information may be counted some works
of the Sangam Age, notably Cilappadikaram and Manimekhalai of the
second century AJD. These works attribute the viharas of Kaveripatd-
nam to Mahinda.
Manimekhalai says that at the instance of the Theri-Manimekhalai,
the Chok king Killivalavan (second century A.D.) converted a prison
house into a charity house and donated it to Buddhists for use as a palli
and a charity house. Rasavahini, the Pali chronicle, refers to a Chola

1. A commemoration of these early contacts with Vanavasa (North Kanara) is

the histone Vanavasa Raja Maha Vihara at Bentota in Ceylon, “once the
seat of eminent scholar-monks of world-wide fame.”
 77

king having been convinced by certain Buddhist monks of the superiority

of the Buddha’s Dhamma to Brahmanical doctrines and made over the

Saivite shrine he had built to the Buddhists, who converted it into a
Buddhist temple.
The name Arittapatti, a village of Madura,recalls the caves in which

Aritca of Ceylon is said to have lived. Brahmi inscriptions have been

{hand in these caves. Aritta is said to be kinsman of King Devanampiyya
1
Trisa of Ceylon.
The Sangam Age, —from the closing centuries of the pre-Christian

Bra to the fifth century A.D., —

was synchronous with the spread and
advance of Buddhism in Andhradesa. In the reign of King Pulamavi,
Amaravati became the centre of the Cetiyakas. The erection of the
Mahacetiya of Amaravati was followed by the building of the great stupas
at Jaggayapeta andNagarjunikonda on either side of the river Krishna.

Inscriptions at Nagarjunikonda speak of a Mahavihara near the Mahace-

tiya for the reception of Sramanas from Kashmira, Gandhara, Cina,

Cikta, Tosali, Aparanta, Vanga, Vanavari, Yavana, Damila, Palura and
Tambapannidipa. One of
the monasteries, was specially appointed for
the residence of monks from Sinhala (Ceylon).
According to the Gandhaoamsa (see Journal of the Pali Text Society ,
1886-87), the three main centres of Theravada Buddhism in South India,
were Kanchipura (Conjeevaram), Avanti and Arimaddana.
Buddhaghosa, the great commentator on Theravada scripture, lived
at different times at different places in South India. At Mathura he lived
with Budhhamitta and wrote his Papancasudani, a commentary on the
Majjhima Nikaya. At Kanchipura he lived with the venerable Jotipala
and wrote the Saratthapakasini, a commentary on the Samyutta Nikaya.
Ceylon chronicles tell us of his sojourn in Ceylon where at Anuradhapura
he composed his great work, Visuddhimagga, and other commentaries in
the reign of King Mahanama (409-431 A.D.).
The Sangam literature is full of references to the activities of several
Tamil acaryas who dedicated their lives to Buddhist missionary work and
the exposition of the Dharma.
Aravana Adigal (2nd century A.D.), head of a vihara in Kaveripatti-

2. Aritta, nephew and chief minister of King Devanampiyya Tissa, led the
deputation to Emperor Asoka, to persuade the King to send Sangamitta to
Ceylon to ordain Queen Anula and her five hundred ladies in waiting.
(Maha. Ch, XVIII, 1-15)
 78

nam, ordained Manimekhalai in the order of Bhikkhumis. The life 2BJ»

work of Manimekhalai, composed by poet Sattanar, form the theme 0{
the poem which takes its name from her.

During the reign of King Mahasena of Ceylon (334-362 AD.), Sangk-

and spread Mahayw-
mitta of the Chola country, crossed over to Ceylon,
ism in Ceylon under the patronage of the king.

A contemporary of Buddhaghosa was Buddhadatta Thera, who lived

and worked at Kanchipura, Kaveripattinam and Anuradhapura in Ceylon.

The two great monk-scholars met on the soil of Lanka and engaged them-
selves in religious discourses. Buddhadatta who was patronised by the
chief of the Kalabharas, Achutavikkanta, lived and worked in a vihan
in Kaveripattinam.

An and Japan, was Bodhidharma who

apostle of Buddhism to China
was have been a prince of Kanchipura. He was
traditionally believed to
the founder of the ‘Dhyana School’ of Buddhism in China, in the sixth
century A.D.,—the faith that was called “Chan” (corruption of Sanskrit
Dhyana) by the Chinese and “Zen” by the Japanese. Several other
names adorn the pages of Tamil Sangam works and they belong to the
Pallava, Pandya and Chola periods of South Indian history.

The Talaing records give us a list of the Buddhist teachers of South

India. The list includes Kaccayana, author of the first Pali grammar;
Buddha-vira, author of Sutta-Sangaha ; Nanagambira, author of Tatha-
gatotpatti; and Anuradha, author of A bhidhammathasangaha and other
works.

A name that stands out for its associations with the Ceylonese
chronicles is that of Dharmakirti (13th century A.D.) who is believed to
have hailed from the Pandyan country. He was the author of Culavama,
a supplement to the Mofrarximja, carrying on the history of the island from
Mahasena (334-362 A.D.) to Parakramabahu II (1236- 1268), 3

J- "Dharmakirti (13th Century A. D.) of the Pandya country was another

celebrated Buddhist acarya who was invited and patronised by Paxakarama
bafaa II (1236-1268 A. D.). He organised in Ceylon an international
conference erf Buddhists. The Dattwamsa and the Culavama are works
which are ascribed to this Dharmakirti.”
Ritmachandran, T. N:,eTht
Nagapattmam and other Buddhist Bronzes in
Madras Museum: 1954, p, 8.
 79

The contribution of South India to Buddhism is represented most

effectively by the famous works of its great teachers and scholar-monks
4
for close on thirteen centuries .

A chronological list of the great names that figure in the Tamil

works of the
httgam Age and in the subsequent historical period, will be found
in the
Chapter on “The History of South Indian Buddhism*’,
with which Rama-
ctandran (yens his account of The Nagapattinam and
other Buddhist
Bronzes in the Madras Museum .

.A* earlier contribution is by Bimala Chum Law in his article on

‘South India as a centre of Pali Buddhism*’—Dr. S.
Krishnaswami Aiyangar
oammsmoraiion Volume, Madras, 1936.
 IX

THE LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE OF THE SINHALESE

The Sinhalese language is one of the Indo- Aryan group of languages,

of the same family as Gujarati, Marathi, Bengali, Hindustani and
Hindi.
1
The language so-called must have taken its name from the
people of Sinhala. “The earliest inscriptions in Ceylon are in the Brahmi

script, to a considerable extent the same as that of India —more specially

as that of Western and South India” (Epigraphta Zeylanica, Vol, I,

p. 13).

Besides Sanskrit and Pali which have contributed much to the develop-
ment of literary Sinhalese, the Dravidian languages of South India and the
tribal languages of Ceylon have enriched the vocabulary of the Sinhalese

language during its long course of development. The sacred Buddhist

texts are in Pali, the language of the learned monks of Ceylon. It

developed from a North Indian dialect, Magadhi, which must have

been the lingua of the early Indian Buddhist missionaries to Ceylon.
Literature in Sinhalese entered on a phase of intense activity with
the corning of Buddhism to the island. The earliest Sinhalese literature
is represented by the Attakathas or commentaries on the Buddhist
canonical texts written in the language ofthe land in the early centuries of
the Christian era.
On these Attakathas and subsidiary sources like ballads, legends and
poranas, presumably existing in the Sinhalese language at the time, but
no longer existing, must have been based the Dipavama, earlier one of

the two monumental ancient chronicles of Ceylon which are in Pali

This Pali chronicle begins with the life of the Buddha in brief and ends
with the reign of Mahasena in the fourth century A.D. It was on this

work that Buddhaghosa based his historical introduction on Buddhism in

the Smmtapxs&dika. The other chronicle, Mahaoama , is in two parts,

the first part of which is ascribed to Thera Mahanama who lived at

Anuradhapura about the fifth century A.D.,and the second was writtenby

1. See Appendix to this chapter.

80
 81

Thera Dhammakitti who lived most probably at Polonnaruva, in the

thirteenth century.

Ceylon is the homeland of Pali literature which, since the establishment

of Buddhism in the island,
has developed vastly. Perhaps the greatest

name in Pali literature is that of Buddhaghosa whose commentaries on the

Hikayas of Theravada scripture and his magnum opus, Visuddhimagga,
a compendium of Theravada Buddhism, are the most outstanding in it. He
wasamonkofAndhradesa (in India) who after staying at several centres
of Buddhism in South India, settled round the middle of the 5th century
®t Anuradhapur. His works are venerated wherever Theravada Bud-
dhism prevails and the Burmese claim him as a Tailang , i.e., one coming
of the race of South Indians who emigrated to lower Burma and were
nat uralised in ancient times in the country. Buddhadatta and Buddha-
palita, two other great names in Pali literature, were followers of Buddha-

ghosa. Pali literature of Ceylon is mainly concerned with Buddhism and

its exposition.

Apart from its Pali literature, Ceylon is rich in the wealth of her folk
songs. Early specimens of them are not available. But the tradition of
composing songs and the poetical disposition of the people is evidenced
by the stanzas inscribed on the walls of Sigiriya by numerous Ceylonese
visitors who were passionately moved by the pictures of the lovely ladies,

reminiscent of the art of Ajanta in South India, in the rock pockets.

These verses have been deciphered, edited and published by Parana-
vitaw in his work on The Sigiri Graffiti, 1955.

A period of conspicuous activity in Sinhalese literature as well as in

art King Kumaradasa (513 A.D.)
was from the 6th to the 10th century.
was himself a great Sanskrit scholar, the author of a Sanskrit poem
JtMki-harana. He was reputed to be a friend of a poet, Kalidasa by
name, The story goes that on one occasion when Kumaradasa visited a
courtesan, he wrote a Sinhalese couplet on the wall but left it incomplete,
announcing a reward to whoever would complete it. Kalidasa, who was
the courtesan’s next visitor, was requested by the latter to complete the
verse by supplying the missing couplet. Kalidasa did so. The courtesan
afterwards killed Kalidasa so thatmight appear that she had completed
it

the verse herself. The king on reading the couplet was convinced that
it must have been Kalidasa’s composition. On enquiry he learnt of his
death and he was so overcome with remorse that he leapt into a funeral
 82

pyre and immolated himself*

Amradhapurct —Polonnaruva—Datnbadeniya Period

(yth-Yith centuries)

Some of the outstanding authors and their works in Sinhalese are

mentioned below:
The Siyabasalankara, one of the earliest works of this period, is one on
rhetoric, ascribed to King Sena I (831-851 A.D.). The Sikavalande
Vinisa, a summary of precepts for Buddhist monks, and Heranauka
Vinisa, an exposition of disciplinary rules for samaneras, also belong to
this period.

The Dahccm-piya-Atuva-Gatapadaya, an explanation of words and

phrases occurring in the Pali Dhammapadatthakatha, is the work of King
Abo-Salamevan- Kasub, the son of the twice anointed queen of Kassapa V
(913-23 A. D.).
About the beginning of the 13th century, Gurulugomi, a great scholar,
wrote the Anuwatvra (The Flow of Ambrosia). Though its language is

rather archaic, the prose composition is so elegant that it has been called a
prose-poem. In 18 chapters it deals with the progress of the doctrine of
the Buddha. Gurulugomi also composed the Dharmapraiipikama, a
commentary in Sinhalese on the Pali Mahabodhivamsa. Some time later
appeared the Sadharma-ratnavaliya, of which the authorship is ascribed
to Dhammascna Thera.
King Parakramabahu 11(1236-71) was both a scholar and a patron of
letters. He wrote the Visuddhi-marga-Sannaya , a Sinhalese paraphrase
of Visuddhimagga (Path of Purity) of the great Pali scholar Buddhaghosa.
During his reign a scholar by name Parakarama Pandita composed the
Thupa Vamsaya or the history of the stupas of Ceylon. About this time
was written also the Pujavaliya or Garland of Offerings, a devotional text,
by Buddhaputta, also named Mayurapada Thera. The book consists of
a large collection of stories describing the honours paid and the offerings
made to the Buddha and the Buddhist community. Vidyacakravarti is

said to be the author of the Amritavaha or Tun Sarana, — recitals and

2. Kalidasa here referred to is obviously not the great Indian poet of the same
name. It is possibly a title assumed by or conferred on an indigenous poet
of classical scholarship.
The triangular story of the king, the poet and the courtesan, here
narrated, is one that is not confined to Ceylon. Widely current in India, it
is told of different poets in different parts of India, as of the great classical
poet Kalidasa, with variations in details.
 83

stories in praise of the “Triple Gem”. The oldest poetical work of the
period now extant is the Scua-Davata, a versification in blank verse of

the Pali Sasa jfataka,composed in the reign of Queen Leelavathi in 1 197

A,D. About the same time was composed the Muvadev-davata , a poem

in blank verse. One of the greatest and most magnificent epics of Sinhala
literature is the Kavstlumna or Diadem of Poesy, also called the Kttsa

Daoata, the masterpiece of the royal poet. King Parakramabahu II.

Towards the close of the Dambadeniya period was composed the

Silat-Sangarava, a grammar of the Sinhalese language in metrical form.
Recognised as the standard classical grammar, it was composed by a
scholarly monk who was then head of Pathiraja-pirivena.
Kurunegala — Gampola—Kotte Period (1 Ath to 16 th Century)

In this period of Sinhalese literature, the first work of importance is

the Elu Bodhi Vamsaya compiled by Vilgammula Maha Thera. Another
noteworthy composition is the Dalada Sirita 3 or History of the Sacred
Tooth Relic. The Daham-Geta-Mdawa is a crypto-grammatic poem of
81 stanzas dealing with subtle points of Buddhist doctrine, each verse
carrying a double meaning. Another metrical composition in the same
style is the Daham-Getaya, consisting of 51 stanzas byDharmasena
Sthavira. A work of very great importance composed during this period
is the Pansiyapanas-Jataka-Pota (Book of the 550 Jatakas), a translation
of the Pali Jatakas, the joint work of Virasingha-Pathiraja and Parakrama.
Dhamma-kitti Maha Thera of Gadaladeniya who lived in the second half
of the I4th century wrote the Sadharmalamkaraya, a collection of edifying
religious tales relating to India and Ceylon. The stories have been taken
from the Rasavahini, a Pali work. The same Thero compiled the Nikaya
Sengrahava, a brief history of the Buddhist Church in Ceylon. The Elu
Attanagduwamsa which narrates the story of King Sri Sangabo and the
erection of the Attanagalu Monastery, also was written about this time.
In the reign of Parakramabahu V (1348-60 A. D.), the first Sandesa

3, The literal meaning of the term “Dalada” reveals the Sacred Tooth in its role
of “water giver’’,—from dala, elu for ‘water’, and da for ‘giver’. Behind
the pageantry of the annual celebrations at Kandy and at several devalayas
of Ceylon, is the inherent idea of invoking the Gods for copious water-
supply so essential for an agricultural country like Ceylon. The “Water-
Gutting’’ ceremony which concludes the annual festivals at all devalayas, is
symbolic of the invocation to the gods for plentiful rainfall.
I am indebted to Mr. C.M. Austin de Silva for the interpretation here
given of the term “Dalada”.
 84

Kmya in Sinhalese literature, the Tisara Sandesa (the Swan’s Message) was
composed. It was followed by a parallel poem, the Mayura Sandesa (the
Peacock’s Message), written in rhymed verses, in the reign of Bhuvaneb-
V
bahu (1360-91 A. D.). These are the earliest examples now extant in
Ceylon of Sandesa Kavyas modelled on the lines of Kalidasa’s famous
poem, the Meghaduta or Cloud Messenger.
The fifteenth century may be said to be the golden age of Sinhalese
literature. Totagamuwe Sri Rahula, the greatest of Sinhalese poets, was
the most outstanding personality of this age, the reputed author of some of
the most elegant and beautiful poems in Sinhalese, like the Selalihim
Sandesaya (the Maina Bird’s Message) and the Porevi Sandesaya (the
Dove’s Message). TheKavyasekara orCrown of Poetry was Sri Rahula’s
masterpiece. He
also believed to be the author of Perakumba Sirita, a
is

panegyric poem written to celebrate the coronation of Parakramabahu

VI, at Jayawardanapura Kotte, in 1415 A.D. The Kuveni-Asm or the
Curse of Kuveni, is another poem fathered on him.
A few Sinhalese Sandesa poems deserve special notice. Tisara San*
desaya contains a graphic description of some musical drums. The
Hamsa Sandesaya by VidagamaMaitriya Thera pays a tribute to Bharata’s
Natya Sastra, “rousing the hearts of the audience who wonder that they
are listening to the celestial musicians.” SelalihiniSandesaya by Sri
Rahula is invaluable for the account it gives of digge netuma or the devala
dances of dancing
girls in the temple of Kelaniya. The verses convey the
dance rhythm which are in the best tradition of the art of devadasis in the
South-Indian Temples. The following verse is typical:

“Watch the beauty of the dancing girls.

With nimble feet in rhythmic harmony moving.
Gleaming girdles over the broad hips.
Vibrating with the golden anklets.”

In the Sandesa Kavyas we have Sinhalese poetry, framed on the class-

icalSanskrit mode, adapting itself to indigenous themes from sacred
sources. This poetic medium, so effectively employed, was a flowering
of the art and culture of a period that was then passing out of the social
life of Ceylon.
who was a pupil of Sri Rahula, composed the Guttila
Vettave Thera,
Kmsya, the sweetest lay in Sinhala poetry and Budtigumlamkaraya.
A prose work of this age was the Sadharama-Ratnakaraya by Dham-
 85

©adinna Vimalakitti King Parakramabahu VI is said to have composed

.

the Ruvart-Mal-Niganduva and to one of his ministers, Nallumtun Muni,

is ascribed the Purana
Namavaliya (Garland of Names). In the 16th
century a historical work, entitled the Rajaratnakaraya, was
composed.

Sitavaka-Kandy Period {Ylth — 18 th Century)

Alagiyavanna Mohottala was the pre-eminent literary celebrity of this

age. His masterpiece, the Kusa-Jataka-Kavy a, is a poem of 687 sparkling
stanzas, composed in 1610 A.D. Another well-known work of his, the
Subasitaya , is a didactic poem based on the moral maxims of the Hilo-
padesa in Sanskrit. Among his other works are th eDaham-Sonda-Jataka-
Kavya, Parangi Hatana and Konstantinu Hatana. The last two are poems
of historical interest. This period is rich in poetical works. Some of
them worthy of mention arc, Maha Hatana , Amkota Hatana, Gajaba
Kathava, and Mahapatharanga-Jataka.

Appendix to Chapter IX
{On inter-relations between Sinhalese and Tamil)*

The observations of C. S. Navaratnam in his work Tamils and Ceylon,

Jaffna, 1958, pages 215-219:
"Rev. Father T. C. Closset in his book, TheDravidian Origin and
Philosophy of Human Speech, says that the construction of sentences in
Sinhalese is essentially Dravidian. Secondly, he points out that many of
its eventhemost elementary, are Dravidian in origin.
words, Further he
refers to the identity of style in Tamil and Sinhalese. If one takes a page
of fine Sinhalese literature, as a rule he may, word for word, render it into
Tamil and have a page of literary T amil .”
An eminent authority, the Mudaliyar W. F. Gunawardhana said
late
in a lecture at the Ananda “Language,— it may be per-
College, in 1918:
—
mitted, is the medium for the communication of our thoughts, and
thoughts are communicated not by isolated words, but by means of
sentences. Language taken essentially is, therefore, the sentence, and
grammar is the science which analyses and explains the construction ofthe
sentence. Scientifically, therefore, the determining factor of a language
is not its vocabulary but its structure, viz., that aspect of it which is con-
 86

cemed with the arrangement and mutual adjustment of words in the

expression of thoughts; and in this respect, it must be said, that Sinhalese

is essentially a Dravidian language. This is not all. Its evolution too

seems to have been on a Tamil basis. And so we seem safe in saying that,
while in regard to its word equipment, Sinhalese is the child of Pali and
Sanskrit, it is, with regard to its physical structure, essentially the daughter

ofTamil.”
Two reasons may be given for the conclusions drawn by Mudaliyar
Gunawardhana. The main elements to build up the Sinhalese race were
Vijaya’s contingent, the Tamil contingent from South India, and the
Nagsts,an ancient Dravidian people.
These are some of the arguments adduced by the late Mudaliyar Gun-
awardhana to show that Sinhalese is essentially a Dravidian language in
physical structure. He compares Pali and Sinhalese on the one hand and
Tamil on the other.
(1) In Pali there are aspirated consonants, while they are absent in

pure Sinhalese and Tamil.

(2) In Pali there are eight vibhaktis or tenses and moods of the verb,
whereas Sinhalese follows Tamil only with three ordinary
tenses —present, past and future.
(3) Pali has a distinct optative mood; Tamil makes use of the ordinary
verb for this, with an addition of the suffix aha. Sinhalese
follows this device with the suffix va.

(4) The two conjugational forms named attano-pada and parassapada

in Pali are absent in Sinhalese, as they are in Tamil.
(5) In Pali, the verb is conjugated for the passive voice as well as for

the active, by means of suffixes. In Tamil the place of suffixes

issupplied by conjugated forms of the root padu, to suffer.

In Sinhalese the device is the same, the place of the suffixes being
supplied by the conjugated forms of the root laba to receive.
(6) In Pali the adjective is declined for gender, number and case.
In Tamil it is not. Sinhalese follows the Tamil.
(7) In Pali the relative clause is sometimes a necessity. In Tamil
the necessity is absent and the place of the relative clause is

supplied by a verbal adjective, as it is in Sinhalese.

(8) In Pali, the verb-stem of the past tense is developed from the root
either (a) by placing before it the vowel a or (b) doubling the
initial consonant of the root. This is unknown in both Tamil
 87
(9)

and Sinhalese.
In Tamil, the past tense is formed from the stem of the past
participle adjective by adding the personal suffixes for the two
numbers. In Sinhalese it is the same.

(10) In Pali there isno junction of words by means of the epenthesis

_yort> in a concursus of two vowels, the first of which may happen

to be i or u. In Tamil, when » or u forms the first of a concursus

of two vowels, their junction by means of the epenthesis

y or v, as the case may be, is compulsory. So in Sinhalese.

(11) In Tamil there are —
two verbs podu ‘to put’ and vidu ‘to leave —
off’ which are affixed to other verbs just for the sake of vivid

expression, the substantive verb in this case being put in the

perfect participle. There is no such idiom in any known Aryan
language. But the idiom obtains in Sinhalese.
(12) In Tamil, after the Nominative and Accusative cases have been
given, the stem of the Accusative case is the guide to the rest of
the declension. In Sinhalese it is the same.
Mudaliyar Gunawardhana further says that more affinities between
the two languages could be given.
“On the other hand many reasons have been put forward to prove that
the Sinhalese language has Aryan characteristics. The relationship
between Tami land Sinhalese, however, is interesting, and none can deny
the influence of Tamil on the grammatical constitution of the Sinhalese
language.”
In this context, the summing up by L. D. Barnett in the pages of the
Cambridge History of India , Volume I, “Ancient India,” Ch. XXV,
“The Early History of Ceylon” will be read with interest:
“The stream of immigration from the Dravidian regions of India,
especially the Tamil country, has been constant since the dawn of history.

Sometimes proceeding in drops, sometimes in great waves, and at the

present day, the northern part of the Island is mainly Tamil; but the
Sinhalese language, though marked by Dravidian influences, is Aryan and
is descended from a Sanskrit tongue, closely akin to the Vedic. This fact
and certain data of legend suggest that at some early date, an invading
band of Aryans, conquering part or the whole of Ceylon imposed its
language and perhaps something of its culture and institutions upon
the mixed Vedda-Dravidian population which it found there, and then
gradually became fused in the racial congeries of the Island.”
 X
ART AND ARCHITECTURE
Ceylon at no period of her story has been an island of social or cultural

with her own indigenous culture, unaffected by influences from

isolation

abroad. India being adjacent to Ceylon has had the largest hand in shap-
ing and moulding Ceylonese art and culture. Ceylon has nevertheless
made her own what she stamped with her owa
has adopted; she has
personality all that she derived from India, and so intensive and far-reach-
ing has been the process, that Indian origins of Ceylonese art can scarcely
be distinguished as such today. A typical example is Ceylonese work on
‘moonstone.’ The plain moonstone of Amaravati type developed in the
hands of craftsmen in Ceylon into objects of such artistic expression as

was never paralleled at Amaravati or elsewhere in India, The same may

be said of Ceylon’s decorative patterns in architecture.
Two distinct strands of Ceylon’s architecture of the Middle Ages are
Sinhalese and Tamil, the latter more specifically the Dravidian. A con-
spicuous feature of this architecture is its co-existence and development
side by side.

Speaking of Pollonaruwa, writers have remarked on its “architectural

confusion that is charming but puzzling to the layman’s eye.” (Brooke
Elliott: The Real Ceylon). This refers to the large number of structures
of the Dravidian style keeping company with the Sinhalese, each style
1
pursuing its own traditional lines .
Architecture in Ceylon was inspired in its beginnings by the Buddhist
architecture of India developed under the stimulus of the active pursuit of
Buddhism. It advanced in the early Middle Ages to a distinctive

Sinhalese type that made a profound contribution as Paranavitana asserts,

to “ the art of India, or of Asia as a whole.”
Two outstanding types of Sinhalese architecture are the Stupa, en-
closed by a circular shrine called the Vattadage, and the massive brick-

1. For the detailed study of the subject presented in this chapter, the researches
by well-known exponents of the an, architecture and archaeology of the
Island, notably Paranavitana and Deraniyagala have been drawn upon,
supplementary to my studies in Situ, of the arts and antiquities of Ceylon,
Among other sources are mainly the Annual Administration Reports of the
Commissioner of Archaeology, and the Memoirs of the Department of
Archaeology.

88
 89

built shrine with vaulted roof, rising from a heavily moulded plinth.

The giant stupas of Ceylon date from the third century B.C. to the
century A,D. Mention has already been made of the outstanding
4th
ones. Stupas are
all of the same pattern of structure —
a solid dome of brick

masonry with a terraced base in three stages. Surmounting the dome is

i solid cube of masonry with or without an ascending series of

"umbrellas.”
The circular shrine,the “Vattadage,” is marked by concentric circles

of monolithic
pillars which must have supported a domical roof presum-
ably of timber. The circular form which found favour in Ceylon up to
the fifteenth century, went out of vogue very early in India. Mementoes
of the type in India are revealed in bas-reliefs, as of the Amaravati

stupa.
The Vattadage of Pollonaruwa (Plate 4, Fig. i) and the one at

Mandalagiri (Medirigiriya), north of Minneriya in Anuradhapura, are

wdl-known. The latest reclaimed from the jungles are two of more
perfect examples of these circular shrines. An array of concentric circles

of pillars remain still to call up to our mind’s eye the structural glory that
the Vattadage must have been, with its domical roof of timber which has
succumbed to the ravages of time.
The main architectural feature of the stupa is represented by the
Vahalkades, (Plate 4 Fig. ii) often alluded to as “frontispieces,” altars at
the four cardinal points. Flanking the altars are the decorated stele,
upright sculptures low relief with various artistic motifs. The
in
foliated scroll or palm-leaf, plants with leaves and flowers rising from a

me, and figures mostly of animals and birds, are among the conventional
motifs gracing a stele. It is “reminiscent of the Buddhist art of Central
India, represented by the bas-reliefs of Bharhut and Sanchi.” “An
aversion to depth and the treatment of the individual figures in a gradation
of separate planes or as mere silhouettes,” as at Bharhut and Sanchi are
characteristic of early Sinhalese sculptures, seen conspicuously atKantaka

Cetiya at Mihintale, the sacred hill in the vicinity of Anuradhapura.

Naga figures in human form are yet another feature seen in the
southern Vahalkada of the Jetavana Dagoba of Anuradhapura.
The second architectural type distinctive of Ceylon is “the brick-
built shrine with vaulted roof and massive walls rising from a heavily

moulded plinth.” It has no parallel in India itself or in any other Asian

region influenced by Indian culture, in the opinion of Paranavitana who
 a

90

surmises that it was evolved in Ceylon from prototypes of which.no traces

are found in India. The Thuparama at Pollonaruwa, (Plate 5, Fig.
j)

dating from the 12th century, is one of the best examples of this type

of stupa construction.
Such were the architectural and sculptural features of Sinhalese
—
stupas of the early period, from the second century B.C. to the
fourth A.D.
The next phase covers a period between the fifth and the twelfth
centuries. Here we are in a position to date the sculptures more precisely,
mainly on the ground of their stylistic affinities to different schools of

sculpture that developed in India.

decorative sculptures of this phase are of an altogether different
The
order. Freedom of expression, preference for the human and the artistic,
not always on the religious plane, is its most marked trait. Among these
is a group of lovers on a granite slab at Isuramuniya Vitiate* at

Anuradhapura, — a conspicuous sringara motif, picturing in stone the

romance of a pair of lovers. (Plate 5, Fig ii). The male figure is coarse and
robust, expressive of rough vigour and the female figure is as of M
grace with a well proportioned body, supple limbs and a coy face—
maiden in all her charms. This panel is strongly expressive of the decora-
tive motifs dominant in the early religious art of India, the Mitkuna —
figures in temple art. The sculpture is at the same time reminiscent of
"the harmony, serenity and balance, the key notes of Gupta
art.”

Another group represents "Man and Horse,” sculptured, on a rock

also at Isuramuniya, (Plate 3 Fig. ii), remarkable for the contemplative
expression of the face and the calm and dignified pose of a horseman sit-

ting at ease, on a horse —the " Maharaja Jila ” pose (the pose of the great
king) as it is called. The left hand rests on the seat and the right over the
raised knee suggestive of holding the reins of a horse and looking behind.
The pose recalls the suh.hasana pose of God Siva sitting gracefully by the

2. A vary quaint name is Isurumuniya. Isuru is obviously Iswara, and

Muniya is no doubt Muni: a Sinhalisation of the combined terms ii
Isurumuniya. A transposition of the two terms gives us Muni Iswara.
This recalls lo mind the name Mumtemaram , the temple to God Siva
at Chilaw on the West Coast. The sculptures of Isurumuniya, in
general non-Buddhistie, have given much food for thought. Isurumuniyt
may well have been an ancient shrine sacred to God Siva, the 1 swart
Muni, the Sage of Sages.
 ,

91

ride of
Goddess Parvati. The Maharaja lila pose, however, is one that
is
represented but rarely in the South Indian bronzes,3
Another Isurumuniya sculpture shows a group of elephants emerging
from within a cleft in the rock on either side of it. (Plate 6, Figs, i ii) . &
On
the right isan elephant in low relief in the act of pouring water on its
back, with its
uplifted trunk turned back. The ponderous tusker within
recalls the elephant sculptures in the Pallava art of the
the deft strongly

Seven Pagodas (Raths ) at Mahabalipura. Sporting elephants must be a

famjjjar motif in an island of elephants, and they are also in the sculptures
decorating the ‘King’s Bath’ at Anuradhapura.
To passon to other decorative sculptures, the embellished flight of
steps to the andent viharas of Anuradhapura are worthy of note. Among
the more prominent decorative sculptures on them are the guard stones,
formed of upright slabs elaborately and deeply carved with standing
figures of the Nagaraja. (Plate 7, Fig. i). Lotus petal mouldings decorate

the under-side of the steps, and dwarfs support the structure on their
little rounded heads. Figures of the makara , the composite water-animal
of Hindu tradition, ornament the balustrades.
The moonstones placed at the entrance to the shrine are a special Sin-
halese decoration. A moonstone is an ornate semi-drcular slab carved
in low relief in concentric half-drdes, each section hearing different
decorative patterns. Popularly known as moonstone, it has the shape of
name, Sanda Kade Pahana, signi-
the half-moon, as its correct Sinhalese
fies. The best examples are from Anuradhapura. The decorative scheme
in one ofthe better known specimens (Plate 7,Fig. ii) has an outer section,

of an ornamental “feathery” pattern, the tiringa tale , followed by a series

of half drcles one below the other. These severally feature a procession
of animals, —the elephant, horse, lion and the bull; a scroll of foliage; a
row of sacred geese, with the central section carved with the lotus in bud,
leaf and blossoms. The animal symbolism is the same as that in the
Asokan pillars.

The earliest form of moonstone decoration was obviously the plain

tradecorated semi-drcular slab seen in the early Buddhist art of India

3. A rare example is a small figure of Simhanada, a Mahavananist image,

among the the Buddhist metal images from Negapatam, in the collections of
the Madras Museum.
Ramachandran T. N. : The Nagapattinam and other Buddhist Bronzes in the
Madras Museum 1954, pp. 30, 53, 76.
 92

where it never evolved into the complex development that it had in Ceylon,
From decorative sculptures let us pass on to the sculptures of tfo>
Buddha image.
In early Indian art as seen in Bharhut and Sanchi sculptures, the

Buddha is represented symbolically and not personally.

The Dhanoa
Chakra, the Bodhi Tree and the holy foot-prints, are among the symbols
employed to convey the idea of the Lord’s presence. These symbols are
present in Sinhalese Buddhist art, but they are not intended for
the purpose of symbolising the personality of the Buddha as in early

Indian art.

There is no conclusive evidence of the representation of the Buddha

in human form having materialised in Ceylon earlier than in India. Says
Paranavitana {Art and Culture of the Sinhalese )4 : “The earliesttype of the
Buddha-image known in Ceylon is that of the Andhra school. A life-
size Buddha image of marble, obviously of South Indian origin, has
recently been unearthed at an ancient site in Ceylon. There is epigraphi-
cat as well as literary evidence to indicate that a brisk intercourse existed
in this period between the Buddhists of Ceylon and their co-religionists in

the Kistna valley. It, therefore, seems likely that the school of sculptural
art established in Ceylon during the earliest period of its history was a
result of the culturalwave which affected its civilisation in the time of
Asoka and a century or two which immediately followed, which coming
in contact with the more mature art of the Andhra country, unproved its
technique and modified its style .” 4

4. Against this, is the study by Devendra which inclines him to the view that
if the statement in the Mahavamsa is to be accepted, Ceylon should be
given the honour of having created the Buddha image. This statement is to
the effect that King Jettha Tissa I (315-325 A.D.) found in the Thuparama
"the great and beautiful stone image that was placed of old by Dcvanampiyja
Tissa (247-207 B.C.) in the Thuparama.” (Mafia. Ch. XXXVI. 128-130).
Nevertheless, as Devendra observes "We have no means of knowing
:

for certain whether the image had in fact been the work of Lanka’s first
Buddhist king, or indicates a contemporary (fifth century A. D.) tradition
to that effect.” —
Ceylon Today , May/June 1956, page 23.
The of the Buddha images are claimed to be the four Buddha
earliest
figures in bronze excavated at Amaravati which "date from about the third
century. A. D.”; (Srinivasan, P. R
: Archaeology and Art, Centenary
Souvenir, 1851-1951, Government Museum, Madras, p. 108); Ramachandraa,
T.N "The Nagapattinam and other Buddhist Bronzes,” Madras Covemmmt
:

Museum Bulletin, 1954, page 59. The claim to be the earliest images of the
Buddha would very probably go to these figures, illustrated as Fig. 1. of Plate
V, appended to the Madras Museum Souvenir and Plate XXII, Figs. 1-4,
Madras Museum Bulletin, referred to above.
 93

Early Buddha-images of Ceylon have drapery in relief in regular

schematic folds, the drapery covering only the left shoulder. It represents

the style of the image that originated in the school of Amaravati of the
first to third centuries A.D. This style of folded drapery persisted in

later centuries, as is seen in the colossal rock-cut image of the Buddha, at

Avufcana (Plate 8, Fig. This drapery is closer to the Amaravati style
i).

of Anuradhapura images of about the 4th century

than to the usual style
or of Pollonaruwa images of the 12th century.
The drapery of these late Anuradhapura and Pollonaruwa images is of
tJjjn clinging material without folds. The great stone Buddha in the
mins of Abhayagiri Vihara in Anuradhapura is a well known example
(Plate 8, Fig. ii), —
the image which “moved” Jawabarlal Nehru so
“greatly” and a picture of which has been his “companion for many
years.” 5
Among the many images of the sitting Buddha, the Toluwil Buddha
of Anuradhapura is incomparable for the high standard of its art and for
the calm serenity of contemplation depicted. (Frontispiece.)
Buddha with both shoulders covered, as we find in later
Images of the
Indian images, are almostunknown in Ceylon. The seated Buddhas are,
with one exception, shown in the attitude of absorbed meditation with the
palms one over the other. The exception is the image at
placed
Pankuliya, an outlying monastery of Anuradhapura. It is a little-
known figure though nearly six feet in height and carved in great
detail. Here the right-hand is in abhayamudra pose, bestowing protection.

The disposition of the legs in the Ceylon images is never in padmasana,

the interlocked dhyani yogic pose of Indian art, but in ardhapadmasana,
the folded legs lying gently one over the other.
All the best of Ceylon’s seated Buddhas belong to about the 4th
century A.D., the era of the big dagobas.
The next iconcyMphic development was the standing Buddha image.
Such images are often colossal in size and stature, symbolical of super-
human greatness. Such is the colossal Avukana Buddha, standing 42 ft,
high, facing the Kalawewa reservoir at Anuradhapura. This is ascribed
to “a period much anterior to the twelfth century” on the ground of its
treatment of drapery which is “closer to the Amaravati style” than to the
style of the Pollonaruwa group (Paranavitana).

5. Nehru, Jawaharlal : The Discovery oj India, Fourth Edition, 1956, p. 204.

 94

Among rock- cut sculptures, the best known is the Gal-Vihara

group
of Pollonaniwa of the 12th century. Four figures are presented hen-,

hewn out of the living rock. On the left is a seated Buddha on

a
twjrasam (Plate 9, Fig. i). Next to this is another seated Buddha attea-
dcd by a divinity on either side (Plate 9, Fig. ii). On the right is a re-
cumbent Buddha (Plate 10, Fig. ii) and a standing figure at the head of the
recumbent image (Plate. 10, Fig. i). As one stands admiring and studying
the group, the scene would seem to be no other than of the Parinirvmu
of the Buddha with the grief-stricken disciple Ananda, watching the
4
Master passing away into eternal and ineffable peace.
Another colossal standing figure, is one of brick and mortar, standing
over 40 feet high in the ruined temple of Lankatilaka, Pollonaruwa,
It is strikingly impressive despite its headless condition. The trivmka
(thrice-bent) pose, exquisitely realised, a triumph of Sinhalese
is

craftsmanship in the medium of brick and mortar.

As against the superb modelling of the standing Buddhas, the demure
figure of the Bodhisattva Avalokitcswara at Situlpauwa, stands sharply
contrasted.
In the class of rock-cut Buddha images is the spectacular one at the

ancient site of Potgul Vihara at Pollonaruwa —carved on the face of a

large rock boulder (Plate 8, Fig. iii). The figure holds with hands extended
an object which has been a subject of much discussion, not set at rest yet
It is popularly supposed to be a statue of Parakramabahu I, and the thing

he holds with calm dignity to be a palm-leaf manuscript (without its sup-

porting slab), sagging in the middle. On its style and technology Parana-
vitana observes: "The sculpture docs not conform to any known mono-
graphic type of Indian religions, and also is somewhat unique in Indian
art; it does not represent any idealised type. The artist has made a
definite attempt to bring out individual character in the physiognomy.
There is therefore a very is meant to be
great likelihood that the sculpture
the portrait of a king, —whether of Parakramabahu or of any other we
cannot definitely say, as the treatment of drapery, which is the same as in

6. Fernando, P.E.E : “Tantric Influence on Ceylon Culture” Ceylon Today,

Jan. 1962.
Opinion ‘differs as to tile identity of the standing figure. The alternative
view is that the figure is that of the Buddln l;.'r i if <:.v:di:.g with :;:ri< folded
across the chest "an attitude quite uns-v.:i :n ( .ed.'i! imagi of the
Buddha” fFaranavitana). The attitude, with folded c:m«, :s now hi. c a feature
of Buddhist iconography in India also.
 95

the Gal-Vihara images, would indicate, if it be considered an adequate

criterion, that the
sculpture is of the I2th century” ( Sinhalese Art and

Qultm, Department of Information, Colombo).

Side by side with the art of sculpture and probably promoted by
it, developed the an of metal-casting in Ceylon.

The concurrent and inter-related developments of the art of Scul-

ptors as well as of metal-casting in both India and Ceylon has been stres-
sed by Ananda Coomaraswamy.
7 “From what we now know of ancient
octal work as well as the stone sculpture in Ceylon, it is clear that from at

least the beginning ofthe Christian era up to the 16th century, the develop-

ment of Ceylonese and Indian art proceeded concurrently and in close

relationship; nor is there any Indian area of like size that has yet yielded

an equal number of important examples in both stone and metal.”

An assemblage of the Ceylon bronzes and other objects of art in metal
to been brought together and is on exhibit in the National Museum of
Ceylon, Colombo. The subject of the metal arts may accordingly be best
treated in terms of these collections.

A large number of noteworthy images and objects have been found in

different parts of North, East, North Central and Central Ceylon, besides

from the two central sites of Anuradhapura and Pollonaruwa.

The oldest of the bronze Buddha images is the large sedent Buddha
excavated at Badulla in 1876, which has the distinction of being the only
image cast hollow. Its right hand is in jnana mudra (the gesture of
wisdom and exposition) and the left holds the end of the garment. It
is in the best tradition of Gupta Art, and a work probably of the 6th

century A.D. Of the 6th century too are the sedent Buddha bronzes from
the Toluvila shrine, Anuradhapura, dignified and artistic, having largely
the features of the large stone-Buddha from the same site. (Frontis-
piece.)

The recumbent pose, symbolising the Mahaparittirvana, is

of several images, of which the 18th century image from

characteristic
Nilagama, Matale, is a fine example.
Mahayaaism, which had a brief but vigorous life in Ceylon, is respon-
sible for a number of magnificent images in metal, both of the Bodhisattvas
and of Mahayanist female deities. Among the notable figures, is the large
bronze of Maitreya Bodhisattva, “the Loving One, in the attitude of a

7. Coomaraswamy, A ; Ceylon Bronzes Chiefly in the Colombo Mursum, 194, p. 5.

 96

teacher.” (Plate 1 1, was excavated in 1398 south of Thuparanut,

Fig, i). It

Anuradhapura, and is pose,—the head, the

in the trimnka (thrice bent)
trunk and the lower limbs in different poses. The expression of the face is
serene and exalted. The weight of the body is on the right leg, raising the
left hip. The right hand is in t hcjwna muira and the left in varada mu Jra.
,

Another of the Mahavana Bodhisattva images is a unique figure of

Avalokiteswara Padmapani (lotus-bearer), seated on a lotus throne
(padmasana) in a very graceful pose known as the Maharaja lila. Its right
hand is in varada mudra (the boon-giving pose); the left holds the long
stalk of a lotus flower, (missing), distinctive sign of the deity. Of con-
siderable artistic merit, this small bronze may be dated between the 8th
and the 10th centuries,
A recently discovered Mahayanist image is a bronze figure found at
the Mandalagiri Vihara. Seen wrapped in meditation, the image wears a
diadem and ornaments. In the right hand is a double vajra the symbol —
of Bodhisattva Vajrapani.
In a classby itself and distinctive in. many respects, is the figure of a
all

female deity discovered in 1830 at a site between Trincomallee and Bat-

ticaloa. It was removed to the B ritish Museum where it now is. It long
passed for the goddess Pattini. There is a faithful plaster cast ofitinthe
National Museum, Colombo, Standing about live feet high, the figure
has recently been identified at the BritishMuseum as that of goddess
Tara, the consort of Avalokiteswara (Plate 11, Fig. ii).
The narrow constricted waist, the tight fitting drapery of clinging
material, the distended ear-lobes,and the jatamakuta, i.e., the matted and
coiled hairdone in a peak, are among its conspicuous features. With no
ornament on her person, the figure is impressive in its austere simplicity.
The graceful folds of the clinging drapery at the waist and the pleated
central folds arc characteristics of Gupta art, A cavity in the erect
jatamakuta serves to remind us of some inset that must have been once
there * but has disappeared, probably stolen on the discovery of the
statue. A symmetrical ridge sets off the margin of the forehead. Noth-
ing altogether comparable to this statue in its stylistic features has come
from South India and this figure of Tara represents the high standard of
the bronze art of Ceylon.

8. Possiblyit was a hypostatic effigy of the “Anutabha”, the Lord of ‘'Boundless

light” of Mabayanista.
 —

Hg. i- The embellished flight of steps to the ancient Viharas of Anuradha-

purn> with the guard stones at the sides and the moonstone in the foreground.

Fig. ii. Moonstone from the Queen’s Pavilion at Anuradhapura a typical

decoration found at the entrance to shrines.

PLATE 7
GROUP

GAI.VIHARA

THE
Vihara,
of

Image

Patgul

the

at
be
to
sculpture

supposed

Roek-cut

popularly

ill.

!.
 VA

POI.I.ONARU

AT

“•

FINDS

BRONZE

NEW

Kuaraia

.
1
Fig
 97

Allied to this is the seated Tara image of small size in dhyana pose,
found in 1940 on the bank of a stream near Kurunegala.
9
The coiffure
resembles that of the big standing Tara, with the peaked jata from which
the inset gem is missing.

Of gods represented in Buddhist art in the Colombo Museum collec-

tions are four sets of guardian gods (Lokapalakas or Dikpalakas) from
the cells at the four entrances to the Puliyankukma monastery, Vajira-
rama monastery and the Topawewa, all of Anuradhapura. Associated
with these images are the symbolic auspicious figures of animals at
several points, the elephant on the East, the bull on the West, the lion
on the North and the horse on the South.
These divinities are known as the catumaharaja deva, the "Four
Great King Gods,” or the Chatturomaharajano, “the Four Great Kings”
of Buddhist legends.
The function of these ‘gods’ or ‘kings’ in Buddhist thought is to
protect the quarters under their regency from influences of evil spirits,
as it is illustrated in the Buddhist art of Bharhut (2nd century B.C.)
also. In Buddhist mythology they are severally named Dhrutarastra

(East), Virudhaka (South), Virupaksha (West) and Vaisravana (North).

These correspond to the Satara Varan Deviya of the Sinhalese, the four
guardian gods popularly designated in Ceylon as Vibhishana (West),
Saman (East), Kataragama or Skanda (South), and Aiyanar (North). In
classical Hindu mythology, the guardian gods correspond to the names

Indra (East), Yama (South), Varuna (West), and Kuvera (North).

The Hindu bronzes discovered at the Siva Devalas of Pollonaruwa
are artistically different and of Unlike the objects of
different styles.
Buddhist art, these are obviously either Ceylon by the Hindu
made in
school of sthapatis, the hereditary workers in bronze-casting of South
India, or transported from South India during the Chola occupation of
Pollonaruwa (1017-1070 A.D.). Several of the folk chronicles of Ceylon
(Kalvettu) speak of images of Hindu gods brought over for installation in
the temples of North Ceylon. Images of Nataraja, Siva as Sandhya
Vandana Murthi, Parvati, Manickavasagar, Tirugnana Sambandar,
Sundara Murti, Appar, Chandikeswara, Suriya and Nandi the Bull, are
Hindu images. In the opinion of Ananda Coomaraswamy, "some
typical

9. For an illustrated account of the image, see Deraniyugala. P.E.P., Marg,

Bombay, VoL V, No. 3,
 98

of the Saiva saints, especially Sundara Murti and Manickavasagar, are

superior to any South Indian examples, but all these figures are in
Dra vidian style.” A fine image in that style is that of Siva as Sandhya
Vandana Murti.
Though the Ceylonese Nataraja images “lack the grace and sensitive
modelling of the splendid examples from Madras,” the figures of the
Ceylonese Nataraja are nevertheless outstanding examples of art in
bronze, comparing very well with the Indian specimens, with the excep-
tion of the famous Tiruvalangadu Nataraja in the Madras Museum
which reaches the acme of harmonious speed and rhythmic movement,
that is of the very essence of Siva’s cosmic dance. The “evil spirit,”
whom in a Nataraja figure the god is shown as trampling on, is more
spiritedly rendered in Ceylonese Nataraja figures than in the Indian ones,
— the agony of the victim is more powerfully shown.
A further series of bronzes of Hindu gods and goddesses was
discovered on explorations at Pollonaruwa in November, 1960. ,CI
The first find was a small image of a goddess, inches high,
between Siva Devale No. 5 and Vishnu Devale No. 4. The second
was a group of images recovered from a pit comprising (i) an image
of Nataraja. 56 inches in height with the pedestal and the tiruvasi
(prabha ) (Plate 12, Fig. i); (ii) Siva as Somaskanda (without Parvati
and Skanda); (iii) a standing figure of Vishnu 30j inches in height
with the pedestal, (iv) an image each of Parvati (Plate 12, Fig. ii) and
Lafcshmi; (v) a figure each of Chandesvara (Chandikesvara) and Sundara-
murthi (Satvite saints); and (vi) a specimen of Sudarasana-Chakra. “An
earthen censer with charcoal, bore silent testimony to a final ritual
accompanied with burning of incense,” to quote the words of the Ceylon
Archaeological Commissioner. The third was a collection of small
statuettes and other objects in an earthen pot. The statuettes display
“great skill of Nataraja, of Siva
in workmanship,” representing a figure
as Bhairava,and among others, of Skanda, a dancing Balakrishna, three
goddesses and Nandi. Of particular interest was also a figure of Karaik-
kal Ammatyar, “the gen of the whole collection,” as Sir Kanthiah Vai-

thianathan described it. The fourth find was an image of Gancsa, 23

inches high (Plate 12, Fig. iii). Holding a mango in its hand, the figure
is “of exceptional beauty,” as was remarked by the Archaeological

10. Journal R.A.S. (Ceyksa), VoL VII, Part 2 (New Series), 1961, pp. 239-253.
 99

Commissioner. The fifth is another figure of Vishnu which differs from

the earlier find of Vishnu in physical characteristics, the arrangement

of the drapery, the Kiri t a Makuta, and the disposition of ornaments.
Prof.Paranavitana made a fair appraisal of the new discoveries in these
words: “while the artistic value ofthese bronzes is very great, the figures of
the Natarajas in this collection do not approach the excellence of the figure
of the famous Nataraja bronze in the Madras Museum and that found
previously at Pollonaruwa and now in the Colombo Museum. Some of
these bronzes have peculiar iconographic characteristics. Sir Ponnam-
fralam Arunachalam has suggested that some of the bronzes discovered
earlier at Pollonaruwa have certain Ceylonese traits, but in the main all

these bronzes follow South Indian tradition and are representative of

11
South Indian art.”

In the fresco art of Ceylon, Indian influence is equally evident; it is

best seen in the frescoes of the rock-pockets of Sigiriya. These are not
necessarily the earliest frescoes of Ceylon. Whatever earlier specimens
there may have been, these are not very evident today, though traces of
11
fresco art are reported from obscure sites. The art of Sigiriya
holds the pride of place in the pictorial art of Ceylon.
Scholars have looked for the Indian affinities of Sigiriya art. Among
writers on the subject Benjamin Rowland who observes as follows:
is

“After the break-up of the Maury a Empire, Ceylon appears to have had a
close connection, religious and artistic, with the Andhra Kingdom on the
South East coast of the mainland. We can be reasonably certain that
there was a school of painting in Ceylon at least as early as a school of
sculpture. Just as the earliest statues in the Island are modelled on the
types created by the Buddhist ateliers in the Andhra centres in the Kistna
District, the now lost early painting probably stemmed from the same
source. I am inclined to believe that the strong differences in style which
we note between the later Sigiriya paintings and the Central I ndian Cycles
at Ajanta and Bagh are accounted for by the fact that, even at this early
period (about 500 A.D), it was the influence of the South-eastern rather

11. Ibid. Concluding presidential observations at a meeting of the R.A.S., Ceylon,

held at the Colombo Museum Lecture Hall on 23rd June 1961.
21. A discovery of this character was reported from a cave at
casual
Kohambana about sixteen miles off Amparai, “the habitation of a lonely
monk,” where frescoes were discovered “which bear striking similarities to
the paintings at Siguiya": the Ceylon Daily News of March 20, 1956.
that Central India that shaped the style of the Sinhalese school of pamt-
1
ing.*’ * Benjamin Rowland follows up this observation with more
specific parallelisms noting the “resemblance of these ladies of Sigiriya
to the maidens in the sculpture of Amaravati.” Despite the resemblance,
the differences also are striking. The “maidens” of Amaravati are
“delicate, tender and creeper-like with tapering legs and arms long and
slender,” but the “ladies” of Sigiriya are comparatively heavy with a
flavour of opulence, specially the matronly mistresses delineated.
The variety of personality represented in the Sigiriya frescoes vary
from “crabbed age” and “portly dames” to figures of youthful propor-
tions, which would seem to forbid the idea that the figures represent
apsams or heavenly nymphs. The artist, it seems dear, did not conform
to any canon of feminine beauty nor to any idealistic standard of the
beauty of apsaras. The women are portrayed as in life.

In details of technique, the and effective grouping of the figures,

artistic

the “soft form and the softer clothing,” the slow and dignified move-
ments, “the body contours rich in curves that undulate in large sweeps
suggesting the full breasts and broad waist zone, with the waist lost

—
between them” 14 such descriptions of the Amaravati maidens seem
equally true of the ladies of Sigiriya, and testify to equal skill in
delineation of female form.
Reproduction of the Amaravati tradition which flourished in the 3rd
century, A.D. in South India, may be noticed also in such details as the
gem -set head-gear, the fashion of dress, the jewellery and other decorative
motifs of which I may mention one, viz., the Suvama-vaikakshika,
a decoration formed of two strands of pearl strings crossing each other
in the form of a cross-belt. It is a decorative motif seen also in the sculp-
tures ofwomenatBharhut. This adornment in one female figure, can
be traced on either side of the neck below which it is completely hidden
by necklaces until it merges between the breasts into a gem-set pendant,
from the apex of which two strings branch off on either side of the navel
15
reaching down to the waist garment. (Plate 13, Fig i)

Let us turn now to the post-Sigiriyan development of the Ceylonese

13, Rowland, Benjamin: The Wall Paintings of India, Central Asia tend Ceylon,
193S, pp. 83-85.
It. Sivaramainttrthj, C i Amaravati Sculptures in the Madras Govt. Museum,
1942, p. 45.
15. I have here largely drawn upon my paper, “The Sigiriya Frescoes”, Spolia
Zeytesica, Vol. 25, Pat. 2, 1948.
 101

art of pictorial decoration. The Hindagala art of the 7th century A.D.,
in t he theme of “Indra’s visit to the Buddha,” bears in its technique dear

evidence of Indian influence. (Hate 13, Fig. ii) “As at Ajanta, one scene
merges into another, the prinripai characters being repeated in each.”
Among other features are the over-crowding of figures and the colours
employed, mainly red and yellow” (Deraniyagala).
The Hindagala art obviously developed into the Pollonaruwa art. It
is displayed in a series of fresco scenes from the life of the Buddha and the
Jataka tales on the walls of the T ivanka shrine at Pollonaruwa of the 12th
century. “The main colours are yellow and red, in contrast to the rich
colouring of the Sigiriya art.”
“A combination of the Sigiriya and Hindagala schools is represented
in the Dimbulagala art of about the 12th century to which may be assigned
the fragment of a painting found in a cave near Dimbulgala in the North-
Central Province, depicting four haloed divinities seated on flowers, pro-
bably paving homage to the Buddha”' 6
The early Sinhalese school of painting with its affinity to the art of
South India and its contribution to that of South East Asia, vanished with
the fall The splendour of Pollonaruwa was
of Pollonaruwa in 1213.
no more. Art talent began t o find a new tone and expression in folk arts,
in painting as well as in handicrafts. With the need for colourful schemes
m the decoration of temples which grew in later times, a decorative folk
art developed employing bright colours, —an art which survives in Ceylon
till today.
Indian
artists from the Andhra country are believed to have been

employed by the Kandyan kings, Narendra Sinha (1707-1739) and Kirti

Sri (1747-1780), to renovate and decorate the temples ('Deraniyagala).
Considerable interest was aroused in recent years by the find of three
Saivite bronzes at Trincomallce at a site in the vicinity of the famous
Swami Rock which is the site of the ancient Konesar temple. Siva as
Chandrasekhara, Soma (Siva in sukhasana), and Parvati are the three
figures in these bronzes. They call for a passing notice in the context
of Ceylonese bronze-art.
Siva in sukhasana pose, sitting at ease with one leg hanging down, is
the form of the god in what is known as the Somaskanda group, where

16 . Deraniyagala, P.E.P.: “The Human and Animal Motif in Sinhala Art’ :

JJLA.S. (CJB.),New Series, Vol. IV. Part. 1. pp. 6-7.

 102

Siva and Farvati are seated side by side with Skanda ( Subramanya) in
between, A
group of such combination is among the bronze images
discovered at rollonarawa, though here there is no Skanda. Such groups
are often found without Skanda, as the ftgure of Skanda is east separately
and then introduced between Siva and Farvati. In the Trincomallee find,
Siva alone is found without the mother and son. These bronzes possibly
got separated and it is also possible that some parts passed into private
17
collections or, in the alternative, might be discovered later .

Of the three, the figure of Chandrasekhara by the general style of

treatment and several ornamental and decorative details, e.g., the yagno-
pavita (sacred thread) in three strands, the narrow median loop of the lion-
faced girdle, the floral designs of the lower garment, the height and placing
of the weapons, the broad band above the navel, udara-bandha, the
modelling of the jointed hands, the radial Jata, the design of the pitam
(seat), the shaping of the fingers — conforms generally to the Chola type of
Hindu iconography.
The same cannot be said of the figure of Soma in the Trincomallee
find, a figure strikingly different in general style and treatment from the
Pollonaruwa image of the god. The differences are particularly con-
spicuous in the moulding and shaping of the thick-set legs, the disposition
of the flexed right leg which in the Pollonaruwa image is drawn closer to
the body, the form of the jata makuta, and the girdle, the overstressing of
the yagnopavita and the chest ornaments. These features do not fit in
with the technique of the Chola type in iconography. It is probable that
the figure belongs to the late Vijayanagara period.
Stylistic differences are also noticeable in the standing Trincomallee
figure of Parvati, the sakti or consort of Siva in her usual tri-bhanga
(thrice-bent) pose. The waist is not so slim nor the figure so graceful
as the Pollonaruwa figures of the goddess. Other details too, such as the
conventional loop of the highly ornamental girdle, the siraschakra (wheel-
on-the-head) features, the tassels and knots of the doth on either side, the
jewellery on the feet and hands, these detract the image from being pro-
nounced as Chola. It may be of the Vijayanagar period like the Soma

17. Actually an image of Parvati ma

iittingpcstvre, was one of the four finds.
Including an image of Ganesa, a trisuUmt (trident) and the figure of a
hamsa (swan), discovered earlier near the site. Balendra W: “Trincomallee
Bronzes", Tamil Culture, April 1953, p. 177. This seated Parvati may very
possibly have belonged to the Somaskanda group.
 103

1 *
figure.
Worship of Hindu gods having prevailed in the Hindu temples of
Ceylon and more so in the Northern and Eastern Provinces, there is no
prma facie ground for fixing treasure-trove finds of Hindu bronzes as
necessarily of iheChola type or of the Chola period, though such
assignment may be tempting in view of the historic associations of the
1 1th century (from 1000-1070 A.D.), when Pollonaruwa was occupied by

Chola Kings.
To s ummarize the story of Ceylonese architecture and art in their
relation to India. (V. M. Narasitnhan, 1951) The earliest Buddhist
period of Ceylon covers approximately third century B.C. to fourth
century A.D. It has left its rich heritage of art to Ceylon. The
magnificent and colossal stupas, the ornamental and decorative
architecture of Anuradhapura, the sculptures of dwarfs and of Naga
deities, the moonstones, the stone- railings of Anuradhapura recalling
—
those of Sitnchi and Amaravati all these and more that defy enumeration
characterise the earliest Buddhist art of Ceylon.
The latter part of this epoch is distinguished by influences of
typical Andhra art, as seen in the Buddhist sculptures of Amaravati
and reproduced in a number of Ceylonese sculptures of the Buddha and
Bcdhisattvas.
Indian art in all its glory is distinctive of the Gupta Age of ancient
India from about 300 A.D. to 600 A.D. It established its traditions in
the plastic and fine arts of both India and Ceylon. The Toluvil stone
sculpture of the Buddha at Anuradhapura, is among the outstanding
figlures typical of this age, the tradition of which was continued in the
metallic arts of Ceylon. The tradition is represented by the innumerable
outstanding products of art in metal of Ceylon, already reviewed.
When the Gupta influence faded out, Ceylonese architecture was
mainly influenced by that of South India beginning with the Pallavas from
—
600 A.D., this architecture being called the Dravidian for distinction.
From
the earliest Pallava monuments of Mahendra Varma I (610-
640 A.D.) to the fall of the Vijayanagara Empire in 1600 A.D., the
Dravidian architecture went through different phases which varied with
the dynasties of Kings. We thus have four main styles of Dravidian

18. In the foregoing observations on the three Trincomallee bronzes, I

acknowledge my debt to Mr. V. M. Narasimhan, architect and archaeo-
logist of Madras for his technological study of the figures.
 —

104

architecture,—the Pallava, the early Chola, the late Chola and Vijaya-
nagar, after which we come to the modem period.
Of the sacred shrines of the Pallava times in Ceylon, are the Kones-
wara temple at Trincomallee, and the ancient temple of Tiruketiswaram,
up North. A Vinayaka image of Pallava times was found at the latter site
in Tecent years, picked up from what is said to be a 7th century foundation.
Among the bronzes at the Anuradhapura museum are some “with typical
Pallava features.’’
In the Mahameghavana, the Royal Park of ancient Anuradhapura
at its south end, there still remains a group of structures show-
ing how natural rock was chiselled and incorporated in the floors and the
walls. This looks back to the composition of the details of wooden archi-
tecture of the early Pallava monuments.
Recalling the technique of the rock-cut Pallava temples of the Seven
Pagodas at Mamalkpuram or Mahabalipuram are the Isurumuniya
(Plate 2, Fig. and Dambulla rock-temples of Ceylon. A few of the
i)

oldest sacred structures of the island are in typical Dravidian style, the —
Nalanda Gedigc, for example, in the district of Kandy, (Plate 2, Fig. ii)
has the style of the monoliths of Mahabalipuram aud the structural
temples of Conjeevaram.
The group of “Man and Horse” and the panels of elephants on either
side of a rock by the pond at Isurumuniya already referred to are speci-
fically of the Pallava style of art.
The Pallava period was followed by the early Chola, 850-1100 A.D.
Stone sculptures and metal images of this period are marked by a greater
dignity and grace and a more formal pose than of the Pallava. Simplicity
is one of its chief traits.
in the treatment of decorative details
In early Chola style are the Siva Devala No. 2 which bears an
inscription ofthetimeofRajendra Chola 1 (1012-1044) and Adhirajendra
(1070-1073), and Siva Devala No. 5 of Pollonaruwa.
Late Chok, which includes the Pandya, covers the period 1100 A.D.
1350 A.D. During this period the gopura becomes more prominent in
S uth Indian temple architecture, and large mandapas supported by
culptured monolithic pillars appear as at Chidambaram and Madura in
South India.
Typical of this kte Chok, is the architecture of most of the devalas_of
Pollonaruwa. As Paranavitana says: “At the beginning of the 11th
century, the Cholas made Pollonaruwa the seat of their government and the
 105

greater portion of Ceylon was included in their mighty empire. Vi jay a-

bahu I (1055-1114 A.D.) restored the Sinhalese sovereignty and the place
remained the capital of Ceylon till the middle of the 13th century when it
was again attacked by the Pandyas. It is to the two monarchs Parakrama-
bahu and his successor Nissanka-Malla (1187-1196) that this place
owes much of the architectural grandeur it possesses.”
We are told that 13 temples existed in Pollonaruwa, —seven Siva
Devalas, five Vishnu Deralas, and one Kali Kovil. 19 Of these, five were
constructed of stone, and the others in brick and mortar, all having the
same building plan and details of ornamentation. Siva Devala No. 2,
“constructed entirely of stone, dates from the Chola period” and is “a
representative example of Dravidian architecture at its best” (Parana-
vitana\ Siva Devala No.5 and Vishnu Devala No. 4 are built side by
side within one compound, separated by a common partition wall. Siva
Devala No. 5 is complete with garbha, ardha , maha, sopana and
—
mukka mandapas the only temple complete in its constituents.
Siva Devala No. 1 is a fine example of a structure which is definitely
Pandyan in style. The series of Hindu bronzes from Pollonaruwa are
from Siva Devalas No. 1 and No. 5. The images are mostly of early Chola
style. Typical late Chola style of images are to be found in the temples at
Tambalagama near Trincomallee and in the Kailasanatha temple at
Colombo.
The Vijayanagara period (1350-1600 A.D.) hasfeatures of its own such
as corbel decorations on the capitals of pillars ranging from the lotus to
the plantain flower. The Lankatilaka and the Gadaldeniya in the vicinity
of Kandy are representative Ceylonese temples of this period. Indian
temples of Vijayanagara style are conspicuous for the elaborate carving of
monolithic pillars bearing sculptures of horses, rearing lions, and gods and
stucco figures in gopuras.
Finally it is necessary to say something of the style of architecture that
is distinctive of Kandy in Ceylon.
Traditional Kandyan architecture
is mostly in wood, though stone also

is Perhaps the most notable example is the historical structure of

used.
the Audience Hall in Kandy supported on two rows of wooden pillars on
either side, richly carved, a model which has inspired other structures on
the same plan in Kandy and elsewhere. For an architectural parallel

19. Archaeological Survey of Ceylon, Annual Report 1908.

,
 106

basically ofwood, we may turn to the structure of the temples of Kerala

and South Kanara, on the Malabar Coast. The wooden structure finally
gave place to structure in stone. In the process of transition many a
design in wood is adopted and worked out in stone. For a Kandyan
example we have the Temple of the Tooth in Kandy which reproduces in
its pillars the structural features of pillars in wood with the characteristic

ornamental carvings. Among the essential features of Kandyan archi-

tecture are the long verandah supported on wooden, stone or masonry

the high peaked roofs one above the other, as in Lanka tilake viharc,
pillars,

Kandy, with over-hanging eaves giving protection to the walls. These

features are common to both Kandyan and Kerala architecture.
The closest resemblance between the two appears in the door20
and its parts. The door frame of the traditional pattern in Kerala
has a horizontal top cross-piece articulated to the massive lintel.

The face of the lintel, presented to outside view, is often ornamented with
carvings of lotus. The door-step is in two parts, a lower flat piece from
which one steps on to a higher door-step. The door frames too are not the
plain slender uprights that they are in a modem structure, but are broad
and heavy. The exterior bears ornamentations with grooves and mould-
ings relieving the blank surface. There is often a wainscoting of wood
adhering to the chamfered off wall on either side of the door-frame.
This similarity in structural details between a Kerala house and a
Kandyan is seen also in the plan of the typical old residences in both the
lands, —a house built on the four sides of a quadrangle which is open to
the sky. This in Kerala is the nalupura structure, the “four-in-onc”
house, with rooms disposed on all sides of an open central court, (Text

page 171) corresponding to the atrium of a Roman house. The old

Fig. 7,
vahtmea of the Kandyan provinces answers generally to this type of the
nalupura house. This is true not only of the larger houses, but also of
the small-dimensioned houses of the same pattern in the Kandyan villages.
Speaking of house building, another feature of interest is the use of
cky blocks moulded in a wooden frame and sun-dried, used in building
peasants’ houses in parts of South Ceylon. It recalls the middle class
houses in Kerala, built of sun-dried day blocks shaped in moulds.

20, Cave, H.W : The Book of Ceylon, London, 1908. pp. 373-377.
 XI
DANCE IN CEYLON
SINHALA NATYAM)
(.

Our first Natyam is through the medium of

introduction to Sinhala
the Cilappadikaram , a Tamil epic poem of the second century A.D. It
is also a source hook of value for the study of choreography. Out of its
wealth of miscellaneous data, we can recognize two main categories of the
art —Santyam and Vina dam.
1
Santyam falls again into two classes, Cokkam andMei. Cokkatn is
pure dance composed of 108 Karanas, a number which agrees with the
analysis presented in Bharata’s Natya Sastra. Met is a group of three
constituents, Desi, Vadugu and Singala. These three terms are regional.
De$i is obviously the indigenous dance of the Tamils; Vadugu of Andhra-
desa, and Singala the dance of Ceylon. The common name given to the
forms and styles of dance in both South India and Ceylon serves as an
index to the integration of social life and culture in the two regions that
seems to have existed in that age. Speaking of the dance of Madavi,
3
the courtesan, the poet observes that she “also danced the Vaduku
dance,” “Then it appeared as though the five-beat mode of each of
the two styles of dancing. Den and Vadugu, was concentrated in one style,
so captivating was her dance.” Of Singala, we have nothing more
specific in Cilappadikaram than its name. It is nonetheless a point of
interest that the specific term Singala should occur in a Tamil epic poem.
It implies that some inter-relation of the arts of South India and Ceylon
existed at the time the poem was written. Hence for a special study of
the dances of Ceylon, the approach should be an integrated one.
On the other hand, we get glimpses of the existence of dance and music
in the island from sources like the Mahavamsa, the ancient chronicle of
the Sinhalese monarchy. The first mention of them has reference to the
days of King Dutthagamini (101-77 B.C.): “Even where the dancing
women who had come thither laid off their head ornaments, there was a

L Cilappadikaram , Edition in Tamil by V. Swaminatha Iyer, Madras, 1890,

2, Cilappadikaram, English Translation, V.R.R, Dikshitar, Madras, 1939,

p. 104.

107
 108

hall built called Makutamuttasala ” (Maha. Ch. 32, 78). The off-hand
mention of “dancing women” in the passage is indicative of the existence
of dances and dancing women as part of the normal life of the royal court.
Nor were dances and music absent from Buddhist ceremonials for the
Mahavama speaks also of “diverse mimic dances and concerts with the
playing of all kinds of instruments of music in honour of the Great Thttpa.
(Maha. Ch. 34, 60) in the reign of King Bhatikabhaya (38-66 A.D.).
There is corroborative evidence in several other passages of the
Mahavamsa. Thus it is said of King Gajabahu, (174-196 A.D.) that
“when he made peaceful the province of Malaya,* where, owing to its
inhabitants, there had been no peace, he dwelt at ease in his town and
passed the time with games in the garden and in water, with dance and
song and the like, fulfilling the duties of a king.” (Maha. Ch. 70, 31).
King Parakramabahu I (1153-1186 A.D. ), famous for his military exploits
in Ceylon and South India, combined with his enjoyment of music a deal
of technical knowledge. Of him, the chronicle says, “arrived, he tar-
ried there, harkening to the singing by numerous female singers, feeling
out the underlying motif, as one who is first among those versed in the
‘knowledge of moods.’ ” (Maha. Ch. 72, 94). It is said that in the
seasonal Buddhist ceremonials: “Round about the mantapa, he (the king)
placed splendidly attired dancing girls in many hundreds of (other) costly
memtapas, each of them being accompanied by people bearing lutes,
flutes, drums and the like and by bands of female
in their hands,
musicians who were like the heavenly nymphs
to do honour with
their dance, the song and their music to the relics.” (Maha. Ch. 74,
215-217). “The festival was ravishing by reason of the many exquisite
dances and songs of the dancers who, on splendid stages erected here
and there, performed, while assuming different characters, diverse
dances and sang various songs.” (Maha. Ch. 85, 43).
In the reference to the "Makutamuttasala where the dancing women
laid off their head ornaments," and references to “mantapas” and
“splendid stages,” we have indications also of an elementary structural
theatre.
A number of technical terms current in Indian music are referred to
in the Sinhalese poem KavAlumina. The literature of the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries also makes reference to terms of Indian classical

5. Malaya here means the Central Hill Region of Ceylon.

 109

music. The Mahmmsa mentions instruments like mrudanga, kahala,

rmidala and tfina which axe still in common use in various parts of India.
Two exhaustive Lists of musical instruments are found in the Thupa-
rmsa and Ddada Sirita, which belong to a period roughly between
the thirteenth and the fourteenth centuries. Most of these instruments
are of Indian origin, some of the drums being identical with South-
Indian varieties.
The sources for the study of the history of dance and music in Ceylon
may be put under five main heads: (i) Stone sculptures; (ii) Wood carv-
ings; (iii) Figures carved in low rdief on ivory combs; (iv) the literary
evidence of the SandesaKavyas, of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries;
and (v) Metallic images revealed by recent discoveries of the Archaeolo-
gical Department of Ceylon.
Among stone sculptures, is the frieze of dancers from Pollonaruwa
Vishnu Devalaya No. 2 now in the collection of the Colombo

Fig. 1. Frieze of dancers from the Gadaladeniya temple.

 110

National Museum. The figures are in sharp outline. One of

them has a long dram slung from the shoulders, representing the drum-
mer accompanying the dancers. He is also seen footing a measure to the
accompaniment of the drumming. At the right top is a striding dancer
hands in hasta. A dwarf squats on either side of him. From the sug-
gestive wings of these dwarfs, they seem to symbolize Kinnaris, musicians
of mythology.
The from the Gadaladeniya temple, in the vicinity of Kandy,
frieze
shows three dancing figures. (Text Fig. 1). Worn and weathered as
they are, the figures depict dancers in different dance poses, recalling
the Bharat Natya.
More fully illustrative of the art are dance sculptures on the balus-
trades flanking the steps of the stair-case of Yapahuwa4 (Plate 15, Fig. ii),

the capital of the kingdom for a few years in the reign of Bhuvanekabahu I

(1271-1282). Early in his reign, he repelled a Pandyan invasion, and for

reasons of security shifted his capital southwards to Yapahuwa on an
escarpment of the hill. At the base of the hill was built a palace with the
Temple of Tooth Relic on a side, holding the sacred relics which
the
accompanied the kings who shifted their capitals for reasons of State.
A high stair-case in a succession of three flights of tiered steps, leads to
these structures. The final stage has a flight of thirty-five steps, on either
side of which is a balustrade profusely ornamented with sculptured figures
of dancers. In the entrance hall on either side is a window “perforated
into forty-five rings or circles, of rare and exquisite carving... In
each circle is a sculptured figure and scarcely two figures are alike. The
circleof the lowest row contains grotesque Bacchanalian figures of jolly,
laughing fellows, executed with great humour. Above them are mutch5
girls, all slightly different in pose and attitude. They occur again and
again in four circles near the centre of the window and in a row near the
top.” The description occurs in the writings of John Bailey C.C.S. 1864,

4. Yapubo, in point of architectural beauty and richness of design, far excels

allother ancient capitals of the island. J.R.A.S, (C.B.), Vol. XIII, 1893
Codrington, H.W : A Short History of Ceylon, 1926, p. 78-80.
Thirty two miles north-east of Kurunegala, Yapahuwa is 767'5 feet above
sea-level. The proper Sinhalese name is considered to be Yasapauwe, the
“grand mountain”. “S’ and C IT being interchangeable, Yasapauwe became
Yahapuwe, later simplified to Yapahuwe.
5. Though this a current term for a female dancer, it is not an appropriate or
is
even a correct term to apply to the practitioners of the an of classical Bhantta
Natya. The term really derives from North Indian Muslim influence.
 Ill

conveying a realistic impression of the Yapahuwa “dancing women.” 4

The figures on the balustrades are more conspicuous.
In their exposed condition, they have become weathered and worn. An
examination of the figures reveals the bareness of the upper half of the
body, as is generally seen in the figures of dancers in wood and ivory
carvings. The lower half is draped, though, at a glance, some of the
figures give an illusory impression of complete nudity.
Noted for its impressive series of fine wood-carvings, is the Embekke

Devalaya at Gampola in the vicinity of Kandy. The wood-carvings of

dancing women (Plate 15, Fig. i) are remarkable for the wealth and
precision of detail —well proportioned figure, expressive face, appropriate
jewellery, attractive drapery with frills and
and braided coiffure.
folds,

The costume, in detail as in ensemble, from the elaborate hair-

is striking,

do to the disposition of the frills and folds. The danseuse sports a shawl
over her shoulders the ends of which spread fan-wise on either side, a
stylisation of the two ends of the shawl. It symbolised lift and speed in

movement. The gay abandon of the figure recalls that of a Bharata Natya
dancer of South India of the present day, —only the scarf makes some
difference.
Almost the same period as the Embekke woodcarvings are the carvings
of dancing figures on ivory combs (Text Fig. 2), a distinctive art of

6. J.R.A.S. ( C.B .) Vol. XIII, No. 44,1893, pp. 107-108.

 .

112

Ceylon. The motifs arc practically the same in both wood and ivory.

If a distinction may be pointed the facial contour which is

out, it is

more graceful and round in the ivory combs than in the wood carvings.
The scarf is common to both.
A dancing figure on ivory combs is labelled “Dancing Goddess” in

picture post-cards seen at the Colombo National Museum. The shawl

has a significance of its own in relation to Goddess Pattini, whose seven
births in this world, sung of in Ceylonese legends, includes one in
“shawl". The shawl has thus a sanctity in the cult of Goddess Pattini.

This sustains the presumption that the figure is that of the goddess
dancing. Even so, it is eloquent of the place that dance held in the cult.
Wc now come to the recent finds of two metallic images discovered by
the Ceylon Archaeological Department. They are two bronzes of
small size discovered in excavating the stupa of Dedigama in the
Kegalla district.® “In the four corners of the relic chamber were
found four bronze lamps, evidently placed lit when the chamber was
closed, aswas noticed from the soot and pieces of burnt wicks which were
found in their oil containers.” (Annual Report of the Archaeological

Survey of Ceylon, 1951, paragraph 151). The two images are strung in a
chain interlinking one of the lamps called, from its ornamental design,
the Elephant Lamp. The stupa of Dedigama has been identified by
9
Codrington with the Punkahagama of the Culavamsa “In that :

province (Dakkinadesa), the Yuvaraja (Manabharana), (who became)

the discerning sovereign Parakramabahu I (1153-1186), had numerous
works of various kinds constructed at a number of places. On the site of
10.
the house where he was bom in Punkahagama, he erected the Sutighara
Cetiya, 120 cubits high,” ( Cul Ch, 79,60-62)
These two bronze figures are definitely in dance pose, typical of
Bharata Natya; particularly the first one, more conspicuous in pose of the
two (Plate 14, Fig i) clearly imitates the cosmic dance of Siva as
10 to the attire of a
Nataraja. The costume has remarkable affinity
Bharata Natya dancer of the present day. The second figure has an
abbreviated, a rather unusual, type of costume. The hands form a

7. Deraniyagals Sinhala Ivory Carvings, Spolia Zeylartica, Vol. 27, Part II.
:

8. Repeat on the Kegalla District, p. 83.

9. Ceylon Journal of Science, Vol. 11, p. 135-186.
Raghavan, M.D : ’Society and the Dance in Ceylon’, Souvenir of the
fourteenth South Indian Katya Kala Conference; The Indian Institute of
Fine Arts, Madras; 1961.
 .

113

hollow with bent fingers, retailing the hast a usually employed to denote
a blossoming lotus in Bharata Natya or Kathakali. These two miniature
bronzes illustrate realistically the dance art as practised in medieval
Ceylon. More finds of metallic images of this class may come to lighr in
the future. Incidentally these images have an additional interest in
relation to the artof bronze-casting in Ceylon.
We next come to the literary sources, the SandesaKavyas. We have
dealt with the metallic figures, before taking up the literary sources for two
reasons. First, these figures come in a line of sequence with the figures
sculptured in stone or carved in wood and ivory. Secondly, they really
belong to a historical age earlier than the age of the Sandesa Kavyas„
—
though they are of late discovery, within the last decade.
The Sandesa Kavyas, in their chronological order, consist of the
Mayura Sandesa and the Tisara Sandesa both of the fourteenth century;
,

and Gira (Parrot !, Hamsa (Swan), Kavul (Cuckoo), Parevi (Pigeon), and
Selalihim (Maina) Sandesas, all of the fifteenth century. Passages from
some of these SandesaKavyas are cited below.

TISARA SANDESA 11
Tisara Sandesa , the ‘Message of the Swan,’
is addressed to King
Parakramabahu V Dedigama in the Kegalla
(1344-1359), then residing at
District. This particular Kavya enumerates and describes in the follow-
ing passages the musical instruments of the period, 1 ’ and calls up the
colour and beauty of the dance- hall:

Kahalam, Kalabera , tammata, patatantn, darnuru

Tamba metaka beta, bombili, vma nada miyuru
Bera maddala, manaram rasu gigilaya banda sonduru
Mesiyal maha gigumen pala karatnin sindu ayuru

Trumpet, pot-drum, double kettle drum, patatantri, damttru

(Copper kettle-drum), bombili, vina producing sweet music;
,

Maddala the gentle music of cymbals, anklets and tinkling bells;

,

Drums numerous, roared and reverberated like the ocean.

verse 164.

11 . Edited by Leelasena, L.M : Ambalangoda, Ceylon, 1921

12 . Raghavan, M.D : Extracts of verses from the Sandesa Kavyas, already re-
produced in Traditions and Chronicles of the Dance in Ceylon, Spolia
Zsylanica, Vol. 27, Part II, Colombo National Museum.
-
 114

Nandana hismnduta pudakala nmali

Maligiya mal s edi ranga bitna sunili
Kiri Sayurdlalata vettu mera uduli
Diya bxndu rendu men ura siri kiyali

Offerings to the fair God Gana of unfaded

Malati flowers, carpeting the dance-hall, blue in tint,

Recalls the figure of Vishnu sprinkled •with

Drops of water from the milky ocean churned with the Meru Mount.

verse 167.

Pakevi Sandesa 13

Parevi Sandesa gives a picture of the charms of the dancing girls,

“excelling in grace the heavenly nymphs”:

Cat cat put e dene tala bedat

Sat tat miyuruvu saha vena nadat
Net nat devangana pasta vadat
Vit dot nalangana daku situ pedat

Versed in the range of rhythms, cat cat, puta,

To the music of the flute and the pleasing sevenfold notes,
Delight we at the dance of the attractive dancing girls.

Excelling in grace the dance of heavenly nymphs.

verse 180.

Hamsa Sandesa 14

Kiyatayutu meyayi suragadamba melama

Ftfata e saba mage tosehe lama
Barata Satara Ranga tram a kola hasalama
Vayata nohara Maddala Suddha Talama

13. Udita Thera. Veo., H. Matara., 1949.

14. Godamumbure, C.E., Hansa Sandesa, Colombo, 1953,
 115

Playing the pure maddala rhythm,

True to the art of Bharat a Sastra,
Rouse the hearts of all present
Who liken them to the art of heavenly musicians.

verse 110.

In theKbra/ and SelaJikim Sandesas, we get more vivid and realistic

pictures of the dance in progress:

Kovui Sandesa 15

Bondman nil varalasala kusttman Semandi

Ktyamin miyurasa gi no varadava pada Sandi
Nangamin ata balamin stiba ranga ran ga ranga balumandi
Rattgamin siti nalambun bdla leladi ran bandi

Admire the charming sight of the dancers,

their golden lineaments vibrating
With dark blue tresses, decked with jasmine;
Sweetly singing with pause and accents.
Hands in movement, eyes casting pretty glances.

verse 280.

The Selcdihini Sandesa of Totagamuva Sri Rahula, composed in the

middle of the fifteenth century, conveys a sandesa (message) to God
Vibhisana of Kelani from the Prime Minister of King Parakramababu VI,
praying for a male heir to the throne. Four of the verses 16; Nos. 75-78
(given in translation below) give a picturesque description of the dancing
girls and their dances:
75

Stand and gaze at the dancing girls in the dance-arena,

Whose hair knots are bound with a scented confusion of flowers full-
blown;

15. Udita Thera, Ven. H., Matara, 1949.

16. The verse numbers here given follow the translation of the poem by
H. Jayasinhe, and L.C. VanGeyzel, in Marg, Vol. V, No. 3,Bombay,p. 7-18.
 116

Their pretty ears decked with shining gold leaves;

Their long, dark eyes painted with finely made salve.
76
Flickering lamp-flames, they seem, —these dancers in array, -

On whose broad hips hang the heavy waist-folds that ripple and flare,
Who shoot side-long glances at their arms as they rise and fall;
Transfigured are their forms in the blaze cast by their jewels.
77.
Drink in the charms of these women who dance.
Stamping their lotus-like feet to beaten-out rhythms
Swinging the girdles round their lovely wide flanks,
With their anklets hung with bells that wake into sound.
78.
Friend, give delight to mind, ear and eye! See the women
Like Kinduru maidens who sing lovely songs
Contrived of the seven notes’ flavours, as though they were blended
Sweet sounds of the flute and the vitta, the cuckoo-bird and the bee.

The Sandesa Kavyas hold up to our mind’s eye a fascinating picture of

the art of dancing that dominated Ceylon of the time. It was in the tradi-

tion of Bharata Natya, elaborated in Bharata’s —

Natya Sastra , the art
that was practised by the Devadasis of South India, and their
counterparts in Ceylon, the Nalangana of the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries. No poet has sung of the art of the ages of Duttagamini,
Gajabahu or Parakramabahu I. In expressions, like the “mimic dances
and concerts,” and the “feeling out the underlying motif as one skilled
in the knowledge of the moods,” that occur in the Mahavamsa, we may
ndeed visualise the early trend of the art which came to full splendour
in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. We may also fairly conclude
that women dedicated to singing and dancing were a factor in the social
and religious life of the island. From the Sandesa Kavyas and the figures
of dancers sculptured in stone, we may also assume that group-dances
largely prevailed in these ages in Ceylon.
The Sandesa Kavyas give us glimpses of the art and culture of the days
of the Kotte Dynasty in Ceylon. They made up an era of all-round
progress in Ceylon as well as of harmonious social and cultural relations
between Ceylon and South India— a resultant of which is the development
of the art of Bharata Natya in both the lands.
 a

The verses stress the harmony of bodily movements, —of the eyes,
the neck, the arms and the feet in the synchronisation of nritya and
a bfainaya as we can see today in the invocatory dance of Atarippu on the
South Indian stage. There are abundant data too in the poems to hand-
pick the fbur —
main constituents of abhinaya, angika, expressive move-
ments of the limbs; vacifca, vocal music; aharya, denoting costume, dress
ensemble and coiffure, the jewellery and the stage equipments, and
sattvila, the complex of emotional manifestations too subtle for words,
all these constituents contributing towards the evocation of the aesthetic
and emotional response summed up in the word rasa. The natural and
artificial attribute of a dandng girl are thus highlighted in Indian works

©a Katya—the body beautiful, expressive face, gentle smile, speaking

glance, lotus-like eyes, emotional expression, gem-set jewellery and the
tranquil mind. They are the attribute taken also in the portraiture of
the Nalangam in the Sandesa Kavyas. The sparkling vivacity and gaiety
of the Nalangana appear in these Kavyas —
picture as true of the
Ceylonese dancer as of the South Indian Devadasi. Her art had an
honoured place even in the celebration of sacred Buddhist festivals in the
early days of Sinhalese monarchy as the Mahavamsa informs us. There
seems to have been no taboo on spectacular arts in those days as is
enjoined by the rigid code of orthodox Theravada Buddhism.
Detailed studies of dance figures, sculptured in stone and carved in
wood and ivory, will no doubt reveal more intimate relationship of the
technique of the Ceylonese dancer’s art to the Bharata Natya. As Sarat-
chandra 19 observes: “In the stone friezes at Yapahuwa and Gadaladeniya
and the woodcarvings at Embekke Dcvalaya, women are represented in
traditional Bharata Natya poses. The dancing figures at Yapahuwa are
similar to the figures on the walls of the Hindu temple at Chidambaram,
and among the dance poses one can recognise the Siva Nataraja pose,
Catura, Karihasta, Gandasuci and Nikuncita. Besides this a large number
of female figures are represented, both in the sculptures as well as in the
paintings of various periods, in Bharata Natya poses,” The poetical
descriptions also reveal the fundamental oneness in that age of the art of
Bharata Natya in Ceylon and South India. The from
art spread over
South India to Ceylon with its specific development and expression and

19. Saratchamdra, E. R The Sinhalese Folk

: Play and the Modem Stage ,
Colombo. 1953. p. 16.
 ,

118

was adopted in temple-dances in both countries.

If there is a gap in our knowledge, it is in the vodka part of the art, that
is,the vocal musical accompaniment or the songs that accompanied Sin-
halese dmces in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. It is a reasonable
presumption that the first dancers, who introduced Bharata Natya into
Ceylon, also brought with them the Carnatic music which is so inseparable

a part of Bharata Natya in South India.

On the subject of the development of the indigenous music in Ceylon,
30
Sarat chandra has given us some interesting observations: “There is
reason to believe, at least with regard to music and dancing, that when
these arts came into contact with the more developed forms from South
India, and also began to receive the patronage of the religious and of the
-educated, they developed considerably, although in some cases, sporadi-
cally. The beginnings of an indigenous tradition in music took place, as
far as the evidence available shows, only during the time of the Kandyan
kings. The folk music, such as carters’ songs, fishermen’s songs, boat-
men’s songs and other songs associated with village toil and sport, are
elementary chants, not comprising a range of more than four or five notes,
and simple in their rhythmic arrangement. In this body of folk music
would be included the equally simple tunes to which poetry is chanted.
The vannam, on the other hand, do not seem to have existed very much
earlier than the time of the Kandyan kings, and judging from their langu-
age, their rhythm, and the style in which they are sung, one might easily
surmise that they sprang up as a result of some strong Tamil influence
during that period. The Vannam , although mdodically still undeveloped,
have fairly complicated and systematised rhythmic patterns. Their mode
of measuring time by the stressed accent (tit) and not by the ordinary
beat (matra) also links them with varieties of Tamil folk music and dance.
At the same time, Vannam display a sort of continuity with the earlier folk
music and the poetical chant. What seems
to have happened, therefore,
is came in contact during Kandyan times,
that the Sinhalese folk music
and perhaps earlier, with the music of South India and, deriving inspira-
tion from it, developed on its own lines.
“The growth of another body of Sinhalese music, which received the
general appellation Viraha, a term applied in the Kandyan period to a

20. Saratchaadra, B,R : The Stnhalae Folk Play and the Modem Stage
Colombo, 1953, pp. 11-13.
 .

119

poetic genre dealing with love and separation, may be traced to a similar
contact with Tamil music. This mmic seems to have grown out of the
loagtnp of separated lovers. On their model, other love songs were
composed, based on legends popular among the people. There are a
large number of songs, for example, having the Kusa and Pabavati
theme.
“The same kind of melody was also employed for the composition of
Buddha stotrm, hymns in praise of the Buddha, and songs describing
incidents in the life of the Buddha. A large number of Jatakas, too,
have been put into song, and these are called Varmnas. There are
included in this same body of music, hymns Hindu Gods like Skanda
to
Rutnara or Kataragama Deviyo, and generally known as bhajanam.
These religious songs are written in highly Sanskritized
language with a
large mixture of Tamil words.
“Viraha music, as this body of songs is generally termed, is strikingly
different from the earlier Sinhalese folk music. It arose no doubt, as a
result of contact with Tamil music that came through the medium of the
Nadiigams. The songs have a large melodic range and a considerably
developed structure. Their language is rough and rugged and bears the
unmistakable stamp of the folk composer, and the folk singer has intro-
duced into them the natural linguistic phonetic changes that would
result from their being sung by those untrained in the learned
tradition.
“The contact with Tamil culture as well as patronage, religious anH
secular, brought about some interesting developments in Sinhalese music
besides those we have mentioned above. For the first time we find in the
Kandy period the beginnings of a Buddhist religious music attached to the
ritualof the Sacred Tooth. Th cDalada Sinduva sung by Kandyan
musicians to the accompaniment of cymbals (.Kaitalan as they sit by the
),
Sacred Tooth during its exposition, is perhaps the earliest example of a
tuneful melody sung in praise of the Buddha. the same religious
It is
impulse, seeking to find expression in music, that produced the later
Buddha stotras and songs like Mara Yuddhaya, mentioned above
although they were inspired by a different tradition.”
Let me refer in conclusion to another set of data on the sacred dances
These are chronicled and handed down to us by travellers and historians
and they are based on their personal impressions.
Perhaps the most picturesque of these, is the narrative of the Arab-
 120

historian and pilgrim, Ibn Batuta,” of the fourteenth century: “From

this place we proceeded, and in two days arrived at the dty of Dinaur,
which is large and inhabited by merchants. In this is an idol, known by
the same name, placed in a large temple; and in which there are about a
thousand Brahmans and Jogees and five hundred young women,
daughters of the nobility of India, “ who sing and dance all night before
the image. The officers of the city revenue attend upon the image. The
idol is of gold and as large as a man. In place of eyes, it has two large
rubies which, as I was told, shone in the night time like two lighted
candles.”
Dinaur is DeviNuwara, the ‘City of gods’ of medieval Ceylon, Dondra
of the present day. The temple is well known for the shrine sacred to
Uppulvan, the lily-coloured God, of the colour of the blue lotus, tiilol-
pala (blue lotus).The temple, widely known as the Mahavishnu devale,
was despoiled and sacked by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century.
On the site of the small ancient shrine, a magnificent building has been
raised in recent years. The sacred dance, however, has long ceased to
be an institution of the temple.
One of the andent devalayas, where the sacred dance had been a long
established institution, is the Saman Deval of Ratnapura. It was my
privilege, with the kind courtesy of the authorities, to examine the
registers of the land- holdings granted to familiesof dancing girls for the
regular maintenance of dances on the night of the temple-festival and the
annual perahera celebrations. These registers give the names of the
dancers’ families along with the measurement of land given to each.
For information on the sacred dances now extinct, at Ratnapura and
33
Alutnuwara, we “There are twenty
are indebted to Sir Paul Pieris :
dancers at Ratnapura. They dress in white dotbes, with a Mantha Hetta
(jacket), the frill behind falling eight inches below the nape of the neck,
and short sleeves. They receive instructions from their leader, known
as Manikka Mahage. They have to dance at night when the last Kumbal
Perahera34 takes place. Then on the day previous to the last Dewal

21. Lee, Rev. Samuel: The Travels of Ibn Batuta, London, 1928, p. 191.
22. Evidently the beauty and personal appearance of the dancing girls was so
striking as to leave in the mind of the Arab traveller the impression of
aristocratic descent.
23. Pieris, Sir Paul E: Sinhale and the Patriots. 1815-1818, Colombo, 1950, p. 480.
24. The preliminary stages of the perahera, when the perahera goes round the
temple precincts cat the first few nights.
 121

Perahera85 and again wo days previous to the Water Cutting Ceremony,

then on the night of the day of return from Water Catting Ceremony.
At the Alutnuwara Kataragama Dewale, at present eight women
perform services. After the perahera has returned to< the Devale,
women dance in the Digge (Hall) in front of Wedahititia Maligawa.
This service is only done daring the annual Mahaperahera and five
days during the Avuruddu Kaithiga and five days during the Ilamaha
Karthiga."
The sacred dance at the devakyas of the gods, in the form in which it
prevailed in the fifteenth century, is aomore. Nevertheless vestiges may

stillbe traced here and there. At the All-Ceylon Rural Development

Dance Recital held on the 13th March 1952 in the open-air theatre at the
Victoria Park, Colombo, on the occasion of the Colombo Exhibition,
one of the fifteen items in the programme was a performance of Digge
Nctuma, by the descendants of the family of dancers attached to the
Horeguna Devale, Badulla. The dance was dcscribedas “a presentation
of the ancestral dance performed at the festival of the devalaya in invoca-
tion of God Kataragama.” The performance, however, had little of the
devotional spirit of the dances of the Middle Ages The decadence was
.

evident in the art, as well as in the artistes. Nevertheless it was a flash-

bad: to the art of the Middle Ages and so an event of obvious cultural
interest.
In the preceding pages, we have covered a wide ground, from the early
to the late middle ages, heralding the dawn of modern times, when three
European powers, the Portuguese, the Dutch and the British, vied with
each other for supremacy befriending or defying the Sinhalese monarchs
of Kandy as it suited their changing politics. This period witnessed the
blossoming of a distinct genre of Sinhalese dance, popularly known as
Kandyan dancing. How far back this specific art goes, we are unable to
say. Deriving its inspiration from the ancient capital, Maha Nuwara, the
‘Great City’, known to modem history as Kandy, the art served for long
the spiritual and social needs of Kandy and its environs. Within the past
few decades, Kandyan dancing has spread its unifying and integrating
influence over all Ceylon, excluding the Northern and Eastern Provinces
which are essentially Tamil.
The perahera, which literally signifies an orderly procession, sums up

25. The perahera that goes round the allotted routes ia the day time.
 122

inone word what remains of the traditional arts of Ceylon. In an island

where practically all national festivals and public celebrations are marked
by a high standard of discipline and orderliness, the perahera stands for a
harmonious, systematised and spectacular display of the remnants of
Ceylon’s traditional arts, a lively procession of dances, following an
orderly pattern, perfected over decades past. Most colourful and im-
pressive are the performances of the Kandyan Ves dancers in their pano-
ply of glittering crown (sikha battdanaya) and decorative bead-work
(avulhera) which also covers the bare torso, pleated and flounced skirt
and jingling bells and anklets. (Plate 14, Fig. ii)

The perahera of Kandy is the celebration of the annual festival of the

Temple of the Tooth Relic, the Dalada Maligawa of Kandy, jointly with

the annual festivals of the shrines of the gods of Kandy, Maha Vishnu,
Kataragama (Skanda), Natha (Sakra) and Goddess Pattini. The two
outstanding Buddhist festivals of Vesak and Poson, and numerous other
Buddhist ceremonials are other occasions for processions on a large or
small scale. The Kandy perahera takes the first and foremost place in the
long series of perahera in celebration of the festivals of gods in the an-
cestral shrines in different parts of Ceylon. These are in the main,
Saman Devale of Ratnapura, Vibhishana Devale of Kelaniya, Kataragama
(Skanda) Devale of South Ceylon on the bank of the Menik Ganga, Maha
Vishnu Devale of Dondra (Devindura, the ‘City of Gods’), and the shrines
at different rural centres of Goddess Pattini, (identified with Kannaki of
South India). Besides Kandyan dances in their different forms, a number
of folk-dances are incorporated in the scheme of a perahera. The most
impressive of these is the Stick-Dance called Li-Keli in varying forms and
combinations, played by nimble-footed boys in gay attire. The Kahgedt
Netuma, the Play of the Pots, is yet another folk play which finds a place
occasionally in a perahera, particularly in the Kandy perahera. As it is a
maidens’ play, this is generally performed in peraheras by young men in
girls’ disguise.

Kandyan dancing has a number of individual forms, developments

from the parental stem of the culture of Kandy which was the last bastion
of Sinhalese royalty.
Of these forms of Kandyan dance, the earliest, most typical and most
alluring is Ves dance. The radiant and resplendent panoply of the
the
Ves dancer is said to be a replica of the regalia of the Malaya-raja of
Malaya- rata the royal magician who was supematurally brought to Lanka
 123

to cure King Panduvas, the successor of King Vijaya, of an incurable

malady. Round this legend has grown the gorgeous ceremonial dances of
the K<ohiimha Kamkariya to Kohomba gods), of which
(literally, rituals

something will be told mfassant. The costume of the Ves dancer is styled
the " suuta abharana,” the sixty-four ornaments. Though not all the
sixty-four ornaments can be counted on the person of the dancer today,
about half the number may be counted in the Ves dancer’s gorgeous
costume. Worn in front and suspended from the waist is the imfiediya.
In shape rather recalling the trunk of an elephant, it is made of glossy
velvet or satin silk, decorated with silver bosses. This strongly
resembles in make and design the elongated feature that hangs in front
from the waist of a Kathakali dancer’s costume. As it is disposed in
front of the outfit, it is known as the Mundt, literally, the
front.
Among other parts of the decorations of the Kandyan Ves dancer’s
costume are,-— the karna vatamsa, the ear-ornament shaped like a leaf;
karm kundalabharana, ear-jewellery in the shape of a rosette; the
forehead band, mlalpata; janghavalalu, small jingling brass bells worn
round the ad.vcsjpadabharam, anklets attached to the big toe by a string;
kadu kappu, the frilled waist-cloth, one end of which is taken between the
legs and tuck ted up at the back, with the other end flounced on either
side of the waist. Some of these adornments are also conspicuous in the
costume of the dancer in the Ottam Tullal, the solo dance of Kerala in
Kathakali technique. Imay add that a number ofthese are also seen in the
highly developed and colourful costume of the ‘spirit dancer’ at the
ceremonial dances of the spirit cult at the folk shrines of Northern
Kerala.
The technological parallelism between the Ves and the Kathakali arise
from the fact that they are both of the Tandava type. Tandava move-
ments are characterised by strength and majesty, speed and expansiveness.
Their curves have a broad sweep and every movement is urged by an

imperious elemental force. “There are many conspicuously angular

movements in Kathakali Tandava. Even the position that the Kathakali
actor takes is angular. He scarcely stands erect, certainly not when he is
acting. Whenhe stands with slightly spread-out knees the legs form a
sort of rhomboid; the hands bent at the elbow, with the palms placed on

The very stance

the hips, harmonise with the angular position of the legs.
of the pose from which the actor commences his other movements is
 124

36
dynamic and nothing can upset his balance .” This description of the
pose and stance of a KathakaH dancer, is equally true of the Kandyan Ves
dancer. KathakaH did not materialise as a distinctive dance-form until
the seventeenth century. Bat its constituent elements must have been
in practice for ages past.
There is also remarkable parallelism between the Kandyan Haramha
Salava and the Kalari of Kerala, which represent the highly specialised
schools of martial training of both Ceylon and Kerala. The Kalari of
Kerala as we know, has been in the past and largely is today, the prepa-
ratory training ground for novitiates who enter on the long and arduous
career of a KathakaH actor. It is relevant to point out that there is

evidence of direct cultural influences and even of reciprocal social rela-

tions between Kandy of the days of the Kandyan kingdom and Kerala.
The angam, the art of the single combat with deadly weapons, for
instance, prevailed in both the lands in the same period of time, as set
out in the next Chapter.
Though both KathakaH and Ves are ofa common type of dancing, viz.,
the Tandava, and their primary or basic stance-pose is common, they are
two different systems. KathakaH is a pantomimic dance-drama with an
elaborate code of hada and abhinaya; Ves dance is pure nritta , and in its
own field of ‘pure dance,’ has grown to the height of rhythmic expression
with a highly developed system of tala. On the affinities between
Kandyan Dance and the KathakaH of Kerala, other writers37 also have
made their own comments.
A class of solo dances coHectively caUed the Vannam, each expressing
a dominant idea, represents off-shoots and later developments of Kandyan
dance. They cover a wide field of themes and offer a varied fare artisti-
cally presented in song and dance. The Vannam are eighteen in number.
The introductory piece is the Nritta Vannam , a prologue to the whole
series,
tl
Vamum dahatta-ragatamay: pavasanne mahatume asanna"

26. —
Bharata Iyer, K: KathakaH -The S acred Dance Drama of Malabar, 1958, p. 113.
27. Notably, Paubion Bowers in Theatre in the East : A Survey of Asian Dances
and Drama, 1956, pp. 91-92:
"Kandyan dance in contrast with devil-dancing is not indigenous, although
in its present form, it is now a Sinhalese accomplishment. Originally,
nearly 2000 years ago, it came from South India and was introduced by
Indian Scholars and missionaries and later encouraged by the conquerors
who followed in their wake. Basically, the dance was what we know today
in India as Kathakali, As such it was naturally a part of Hindu religious
life."
 125

(harken ye, gentlemen, to the eighteen Vamm, I recite.)

Here are brief notices of such of these Varmam as have their bases in
Indian religious or legendary lore.
Gajaga Vanmma enacts the majestic gait of the elephant of the sacred
legends, the Iravata, sporting in the cool waters of ponds and lotus-tanks.
Danced with stately steps, the Gajaga Vannama is among the most specta-
cular of the series.
Naiyadi Vatmama has its background in a jatetka story, the Bhuridatta
Jataka, The story is that Bodhmttva was bom as a princely Naga in the
world of Haps. Going out into the world of men, he betook himself to
the banks of the river Yamuna to fast on the top of an ant-hill in the guise
of a snake. There a snake-charmer captured him with a magic spell and
subjected the Naga to dance to his tune, ill-treating hisvictim and made a
big fortune by displaying his dances before the king and people.
In the course of dancing the dancer displays the ‘cobra hand’ —the
kasta called sarpa sirsa (cobra-hood of the Abhinayadarpana used by the
Kathikali dancers), the hasta formed by bending the tips of the fingers of
the hand.
The Hammrn Vanmma is a dance in masquerade, imitating the action
The Hanuman masquerade has been a mimicry dance in
of a monkey.
parts ofSouthTravancore where the Pandaram, the wandering mendicant
used to go on his rounds in the mask of Hanuman, the Monkey-god. As
he approached a house, the mendicant would put on the mask and perform
the antics ofHanuman, enacting scenes from the Ramayana. The
Hanuman Vatmama is rarely played at the present time.
The Ganesa Vatmama is an invocation of the favour of Ganesa the —
God who is “graceful in form, with the head of an elephant with tusks half
emerged, face pink, gently waving ears like the lotus leaf, eyes coloured
with collyrium, forehead spotted with sapphire, arms hanging loose and
Goddesses flanking the sides.” This Vatmama is attributed to the great
Rishis in their invocation of the God.
’1 he Kuttkuda Vannama. the following story. In the
Its origin is in
long drawn-out war with the Devas, the Asuras were discomfited. God
Skanda entered the field, and with sword and spear cut the Asuras in two
halves, lifting each half. From one half suddenly emerged a Sevul, a
chanticleer.
The Vairadi Vannama is set in the palace of God Isvara.
The Mayura Vatmama is in praise of the noble peacock, the mount
 126

(vahana) of God Kadira, theWar God residing at Kataragama,

The Turaga Vamuxma represents the adventures of Kantaka, the steed
of Prince Siddhartha. The prince mounts the horse led by Canna and
comes to a halt by the river Anama. Kantaka leaps across with the prince
on its back, Canna clinging to the tail.
The Imam Vanmma is a triumphal dance. It represents Isvara
worried over the loss of Uma. The God in disguise
goes in search of her
and when he finds her, Isvara dances in an ecstasy of joy with strident
steps.
The delightful Asadisa Vanrtama, is in praise of Lord Buddha, the
‘Supreme Being unequalled.’ “I pay homage to the lotus-feet of Lord
Buddha, honoured by kings, Brahmins, Vishnu and the gods. Adore the
Dhamma, proclaimed by the great Lord! Salute the Noble Eight-fold
Path and pay homage to Sariputh and Mogallana, who renounced the
world to follow the Buddha! Praying to Gods Saman and Vibhishana,
with the permission of all assembled! I dance with joy, the delightful
Vannama.”
These Vannam solos are a departure from the massed dance technique
of Kandyan Dance.
One of the significant ceremonial dances deserving mention in the
KohambaKamkariya series is the Guruge Malaya , the dance of the Guru
gods. Mainly these are the Maha Gum and the Kuda Guru. In the
is featured as Kasi Nada Guru, the Guru from
invocatory verses, the latter
Kasi in India. Another of the Guru gods is the Solly a Guru, the Gum
from Soliya, the Chola land. These obviously are deities from outside
Ceylon, engrafted into the heirarchy of the cult in the course of ages.
Incantation of the Hog (Ur a) with offerings underlies another highly
expressive dance, with the dancer’s animated look at the sight of the Hog.
The dance, Dunumal Akkama is a dramatisation of an episode
of Sakra, conventionalised god Kohomba in the language of the
as
KohambaKamkariya, the god who took the form of a hog and ravaged the
garden of Malaya Raja. The hog in hot pursuit by the king, covered
enormous distances. Reaching the margin of the sea, it jumped over to
Lanka. At this point, the king struck a blow with his golden sword as
the legend has it and the hog was turned into stone. Dunumal Akkama
and Yakkam Paha dramatise in frenzied dances the king’s adventurous
chase at the moment when he is dosing in upon the hog.
Sarangadeva in his commentaries on Bharata Natya enumerates twdve
 127

terns of Tandava: Ananda Tandavam, Sandhya Tandavam, Tripura

Tanckvsm, Sringara Tandavain, Oordhava Tandavain, Muni Tandavam,
Samhara Tandavam, Uggira Tandavam, Boodha Tandavam, Pralaya
Taadavstn, Bhujanga Tandavain and Suddha Tandavam. The correk-
nor, of Sim hula Natyam, of which CilappaAikaram speaks, with one of
the classical Tandavas, is foxmd in one of the kter commentaries on
Bfaarata Natya, entitled Natamdi Vadya Ranjanam, sometimes referred
4®
to as a “kind of Arya-Dravida Bharata Sastra.” The twelve tandavas
analysed in the commentary are:—Ananda Tandavam (Sanmaya Jothi-
natyan); Sandhya Tandavam (Geeta Natyam); Sringara Tandavam
(Bfearata Natyam); Tripura Tandavam (Perani Natyam); Oordhava
Tandavam (Chitra Natyam); Muni Tandavam (Laya Natyam); Samhara
Tandavam (Simhala Natyam); Uggira Tandavam (Raja Natyam); Pralaya
Tandavam (Pavai Natyam); Bhujanga Tandavam (Pitha Natyam);
and Suddha Tandavam (Padasri Natyam). The Tandavas are here
given each correlated to a particular type of dance. Sinhala Natyam is
specifically oriented to Samhara Tandavam.
Whether Sinhak Natyam, here referred to, was indigenous to Ceylon
or found its way to Ceylon from India, is a related problem. The name
Simhala points to its indigenous character. All dances in Tandavam style
arise from the
original Tandava dance of Siva as Nataraja, the Lord of
Dance. As analysed in the commentaries on Bharata’s Natyn Sastra,
Samhara Tandava is clearly one of the classical Tandavas. Its correlation
to Sinhala Natyam, as we find in one of the later commentaries, would lead
to the hypothesis 19 that it took its name from Ceylon, though it was
originally of Indian tradition.
Sederamen of Kandy, one of the few outstanding exponents of
Kandyan dancing, with whom I have had frequent discussions on the
subject, is of the opinion that the Ves is a “Vedic sacrificial dance”, intro-
duced from India into Ceylon in an early wave of Aryan culture, and that
m Ceylon, it blended with indigenous legends and cultural ele-
ments and developed into the Ves and the mystic ceremonials of the
Kamkariya, The gods are designated as the Kohomba gods, a name
derived from the grove of Kohomba trees (margosa) where these gods

38. Venkatachabtm, Q
Dance in India, Bombay, p. 79-80
;

29. Raghsvari, M. D
“Traditions and Chronicles of the Dance in Ceylon.”
:

o#eiw Zeylamca, Colombo National Museum, Vol. 27, Part. II.

 ”

128

first manifested themselves.

Perhaps no other magical and ritual cult of Ceylon has so much of
mysticism in it as the Kohomba Kamkariya. The historical era of Lanka
had just dawned, and the Island was subjected to evil influences stem-
ming from its erstwhile rulers, the Yakkahs, symbolised by Kuveni, the
deposed Yakkah Queen. At this stage came the Male Rajuruvo , the king of
Malayarata (present-day Malabar). The episode is given a magical turn.
Sinhalese monarchy has just been created (sriskti), and its existence has
been stabilised (sthithi) by the first king, the partly legendary and partly
historical Vijaya. Now come the evil Yakkah influences, in mystical lang-
uage as the curse of Kuveni and the incurable malady of King
Panduvas. The Malaya Raja comes and conducts incantations and
magical dances. The evil forces are destroyed (samharam) and disappear
( tiradhanam ), Now follows a period of comparative fluidity (obscura-
tion), preliminary to the final stage (
illumination ). These several
stages are dramatised in the ceremonial dances and rituals. We are, as
it were, presented with a series of dramatic scenes. The analysis of the
several stages, operational and psychological, fall in a sequence in which
we see the progression of what has been aptly termed, the “divine
leelas 3 °, of “Srishti, Sthithi, Samharam , Tirodhanam Obscuration and ,

Enlightenment” At this stage of Ceylonese history, the historical and the

.

legendary are inextricably blended and are displayed in the mystic cere-
monial dances and rituals of the Kohomba Kamkariya.
The king of Malayarata overcomes the evil forces, and leaves Lanka
blessing King Panduvas who now reigns for a full twelve years. Ceylon
has henceforth her own strong line of monarchs, and the Island advanced
to the full extent of her stature.

Whether there is an underlying Saivite link in the Kandyan Kohomba

Kamkariya is more than one can positively assert. Nevertheless the fact
stands that there has always been and there is even now a strong under-
current of Saivi&m all over Ceylon. The reputedly ancient shrines in
the north, Tiruketeeswaram, now in process of reconstruction; Koneswa-
ram Trincomalee in the East; the shrine of Kataragama, the God
at
Kadira, in the South, and Munneswaram in the West, speak of the —
antiquity of the Saivite cult in Ceylon. There is also the widespread

30. Cf., The ‘Pancha Kritya, the Five Activities* :

Anananda Coomaraswamy ; The Dance of Swa , 1918, p. 59.
 Fig; 1, Slgiriya Frescos —
Siffiriya art holds pride of place in the
pictorial art of (Ceylon
PLATE 33
Hr ii. —
Hindgata Frescos of the 12th century’ scenes from the life of Buddha
and the 1 at aka tales— on the walls of the Tivanka Shrine at Pollonaruwa*
 Fig 11. A Ves Dancer. The earliest

most typical of the individual forts

Kandyan dance.

Pig 1. One of the two recent

bronze find* from the Stupa
of Dedlgama which illustrate

the dance art as practised in

medieval Ceylon.

PLATE 14
 •

KOLAM, THE MASKED FOLK DANCE OF SOUTH CEYLON

PLATE is

* y ’

fo\
jfs
A# Fl?> i. The Hewa-
ralas In a hand-
to-hand fight, re-
b • 1
calling ihe angam
4
. : •• - or single combat
f >, ***'*• of the
_ Middle
.•St Ages.

•i

tl

K
.

•
.; ;
**w

Fig. li. Ana Uera-a comic character Fig. lii. The King and Queen
 129

cult of God Aiyanar in Oyloa.

Other links in the Saivtte traditions of Ceylon are the crown of cassia
leaves,—the leaves of the Esala tree (cassia Jutula ), —
on the head of Nata-
raja, the tree associated with the inauguration of the Kap (Ceremonial
post) in the Kandy perahera, and the Damaruka, the miniature type of the
Udskki conspicuous in the Kandyan U dekid dance. These reminders
of Saivism are eloquent of the place in Ceylon’s ancestral cults of God
Siva, the wild hunter as the God is conceived and pictured in the legends.
Besides the dances, ancestral and modem, we have discussed already,
there are numerous amusement and recreation, as
folk dances, purely for
well at dances that are featured in the cult of the Yakkahs, spirits and minor
deities who are to be propitiated with rituals and ceremonial dances.

I shall briefly refer to a few of the typical folk dances. Among them

the Kokin, the masquerade of South Ceylon, is unique. Kolam is a

Tamil word of various significance. Meaning literally, a figure very much
out of the ordinary, it denotes specifically a person wholly disguised. It
is in this sense that the term is used for the folk play of Kolam.
The origin of Kolam is ascribed in Sinhalese folklore to the doladukka,
the pregnancy cravings, of a legendary queen to see a masked dance. An
old Tamil custom was to provide a woman with bangles in the fifth or the
seventh month of her pregnancy which went by the name of Kolam as the
Tamil Lexicon tells us. It may well have been that Kolam was tradi-
tionally related to pregnancy rites. There is also a dance in Kerala which
is called the Kolam Tullal, a devil*dance in which a number of demons
appear and play their midnight revels before a fire-place —the actors
wearing masks made of the spathc of areca palm, cut in various shapes of
demons and painted in black and red colours . Kolam Tullal of Kerala is a
protective rite against evil influences. The Kolam of Ceylon might
possibly have had a magical significance at its origin.

The masks used in the Kolam of the Sinhalese are of a wide range of
variety, typical of the several characters represented. Some of these are
caricatures of rural society. Examples are, —the Police Kolama, the
Policeman; Hettimuna (the Chetty); Mahatumya (the westernized gentle-
man), A good number is mythological. Such are the striking Rakshasa
figures in gorgeous masks: Nagarakshasas, Mara Rakshasa and Guralu
Rakshasa. The an elaboration of the bird Garuda flying with a
last is
coiled snake in its beak. Typical of the Rakshasa figures are two Naga-
rakshasas dandng with vigorous and striding steps all over the arena
 —

130

Characters recalling the angam, the single combat of the Middle

Ages, are the masked Hcwaralas, (Plate 16, Fig. i), the combatants
with drawn sword and shield in a hand-to-hand fight.

The Kolam masks are artistically carved in wood and appropriately

coloured. Traditionally it is a play in pantomime; it is today essentially
a hilarious folk-play consisting of short skits of popular flavour or
mythological, social, satirical or comic.
A play pre-eminently for the Sinhalese New Year is the Kalagedi
Netuma , of maidens.
also called Kalagedi Sellam, a popular dance-play
Today it is by school girls at seasonal celebrations, played
largely staged
with gay abandon by groups of maidens who hold in their hands small
round brass pots and throw them about from hand to hand across the
stage or project them alternately up and down. Verses descriptive of the
play reveal its original spiritual value and essentially religious significance.
Traditionally played with clay pots, brass pots have now replaced them.
A few verses descriptive of the play testify to its religious character:

Pay homage to the morning Sun-God!

Pay homage to the Goddess of the Earth!
And begin the Pot-dance, to the sounding of the drum,
With salutation to the audience assembled.

Maidens of beauty in bright sari appareled.

Pronouncing sweet words of love,
Appear before the assembled,
Matching the scenes of divine dances in Tusita heaven.

A typical verse is an invocation to the Gods:

May Gods of the heavens illumine.
May Goddess of the Earth protect our land;
May the four Guardian Gods guard us,
And grant us a triumphant dance-play.

CAlappadikaram 11 features the dance by the name of Kuda Kuthu (Pot-

31. Cilappadiketram- Translation by Dikshitar, V.R.R., Madras, 1939, p. 125,

Footnote 2.
 131

dance), “exhibited by Vishnu (of the world-measuring stride) after walk-

ing through the streets of Banasura’s extensive city.” Its origin is traced
to the purely pastoral pursuits of shepherds and cowherds who came to
believe it have been one of the three favourite dances of God Vishnu in
to
his special manifestation as Gopak, the Divine Cowherd. Vaishnava
Alwars refer to play of this kind ( Periahar Tirumoli , Nacciyar Tirumoli »
etc.). It is popular even now in the Uriyadi festival, recalling and com-
memorating the sports of baby Krsna.
Among other folk plays is the spectacular Li-Kdi, the Stick Dance-
play that prevails all over Ceylon. It is essentially the same as the
Kolattam of South India, Its original religious significance is obvious
from the invocatory quatrains:

1 ,

Cutting six sticks of the same bush,

Summon six players of the same height;
Let the Guru distribute the sticks

And let us six friends, begin the play.

2 .

May Gods in the heavens give us umbrageous shade;

May the Goddess of Earth witness our play.
May the four Guardian Gods protect us
And bless us to give a spectacular stick-dance today.

Indicating a heritage of the martial spirit of the Middle Ages of Ceylon,

there is a series of plays for amusement reflecting the fighting days of old.
One of the more noteworthyis the Kadu Haramba, “the Sword-and-

Shield South Ceylon, and other places. In the Kadu

play” of
Haramba of South Ceylon swords are fashioned out of the KittuI
palm (caryola urens ) and polished black with plumbago. The players
don a colourful costume of slums or kid'.k'rs, a g.iu/e banian over the
chest decorated with a profusion of silver chains, end strings of beads, a
silk handkerchief round the wai t with flourishing folds in front, a head-
gear of a kerchief and armlets and bracelets. Each bout lasts for about an
hour, Sinhalese plays of martial tradition are paralleled in Kerala by a
number of similar folk-plays. Of this class are the Palisa Kali, the Shield
play and the Vela Kali of Travancore.
 132

We may fitly conclude with a reference to the wealth of Sinhalese folk-

songs either accompanying folk-dances, or unrelated to dances or plays.
Of the latter class are folk songs connected with paddy cultivation,-—the
ploughman’s songs and the harvest songs. The harvest songs are begun
by a leader and taken up in by the rest of the reapers. These
refrain
Sinhalese songs recall the folk-songs of Malabar which accompany the
transplantation of paddy seedlings in the fields.
Songs of a somewhat different category are the boatman’s songs and
the carter’s songs. The songs are termed the Siupada , meaning literally
'four feet,’ each verse having four lines in metre.
Folk songs are a living tradition of the folk culture of the Sinhalese.
A group or two with printed scripts in hand, singing songs in high-pitched
tones, one following theother, is a familiar sight at bus stops and weekly
fairs. Current events are set to music, and the songs find a ready sale.
The blind men begging alms in a village sings folk verses (karri) in appeal-
ing tunes to the accompaniment of the raban (the popular drum of the
Sinhalese with the skin stretched on one face only). Even the blind
beggar in Ceylon has a rich background of folk songs.
 XII

THE AN GAM

In the martial age of medieval Ceylon developed, round about the

Kandyan country, an institution (ailed in Sinhalese the angam , —a term
which signifies in Sinhalese as wdl Malayakm, “single combat.”
as in
Among materials for the study of the angam in Ceylon, are the Dwa
Angara cloths,
1
fresco figures and wood-carvings, Tim pictorial docu-
mentary supplements contemporary writings, which, however, are
scrappy, giving no more than glimpses of the angam during the days of
Kandyan monarchy. The same institution, bearing the same name, is
found in Kerala too and in the same period of Kerala’s history as of
Ceylon. Borrowing from one side to another is therefore likely.
In the Landhesi Kalaya or the “Dutch Times”, there is the follow-
ing note on Ceylonese angam.
“In the olden times it was customary for Sinhalese Kings to bring down
reputed wrestlers from Malawara-desa in South India as teachers to the
young men of the ilangamadu (schools where wrestling and gymnastics
were taught and practised, together with music and dancing). King
Kirthi Sri (1747-1780) accordingly got down some reputed wrestlers from
India who, after the term of their engagement had expired, returned to
their own country. Edanduvawe Nilame’s daughter having had a desire
to learn the art of wrestling accompanied them in the disguise of a
Dravidian youth. The sole object of this daring young lady’s enterprise
was to support her parents who were in reduced circumstances.
“In about two years, she became an expert in the art of wrestling and
returned to the Island with another party of wrestlers who were just them
about to come out. The Kumariharai, the Ceylonese lady in man’s dis-
guise, on her arrival went at once direct to her parents and disclosed to

them the cause of her absence from home which satisfied them. Shortly

1. Painting® on cloth preserved in ancient Ceylon devalas. On these painted

cloths are depicted combats between two contestants. As an institution,
the angam has sacred associations. The contestants have each his own
divinity to whom he offers ceremonial invocation before engaging in the
combat.

133
 i

afterwards in a wrestling match between the Sinhalese and the Dravidian

wrestlers on the king’s wrestling ground before the Royal Presence, the
seeming Indian youth who gained victory was ordered to appear before
His Majesty to receive the fixed reward. Obeying the order, the lady in
disguise of an Indian youth presented herself before the King, and after

the usual prostration three times, bared her breast to the great astonish-
ment of the King and the spectators. They saw that the victorious
wrestler was a young not a young man as she seemed.
woman and
“The King, her extraordinary adventures, was greatly
after hearing

interested, doubled the reward, granted her lands, and also appointed her
Dissawa (or Governor) of Hathara Korale, quite a unique event in Sin*
halese history.”*
The contacts revealed in this story between the Kandyan country and
“Malawara-desa,” in South India are evident. The only land apart from
Lanka where angam prevailed as an active institution of physical culture
was Malabar and “Malawara-desa” of the tradition obviously points to
Malabar.
H.C.P. Bell, late Archaeological Commissioner of Ceylon, gives a
variant version of the same tradition in his “Kegalla Report:”
“A Maruoalliya gladiator, summoned to court to fight a famous
Sudhaliye champion, instructed his wife to train their unborn child in the
Science of arms in case he fell. He was killed in contest, and his child,
a daughter, was trained in fencing. Years later she came to court dis-
guised as a man and challenged any Sudhaliye warrior. The challenge
was accepted; she killed hex opponent and revealed her identity to the king
who presented her with five elephants and appointed her Dissava of the
Satara Korale.”
The incident, briefly narrated in Bell’s version of the tradition, finds a
Hose parallel to the events sung in the folk songs of Malabar describing
the fight between Aramer and his adversary Arinnoter,
The fight was in settlement of a long standing dispute between two
families. A judicial combat having been decided upon by the State as a
last resort, each side chose its own champion. At the moment of
Aromer’s triumph over his rival Arinnoterwho was killed in the fight, his
traitorous cousin, who umpired on his side, gave him a stab in the dark

2. Gooceratne, F. B., Mohotti Mudaliyar of Galle, Ceylon: Landhesi Raima

<n the Dutch Times, VoL I, 1922, Pp. 13-14.
 135

as Arotncr was leaning against his body, exhausted by the fight. Despite
the grievous wound, Artmer had a triumphal return home. He was led
in ceremonial procession. Almost with his last breath, Aromer removed
his blood-stained kachcha (the doth waist-band distinctive of the outfit
of a Kalari abkyasi) handing it over to his sister Unniarcha, an expectant
mother. He
then enjoined on her to narrate to her would-be child in the
fullness of time all the incidents of the eventful day and to avenge his
death. A son was duly bom and grew up to be a man. One fine morn-
ing, the youth intrigued at the sight of his unde’s blood-stained kachcha
prevailed on his mother to narrate to him the story of his unde. The
mother rotated the unde’s adventures. The narrative was scarcely at
an end when he rushed to the Kalari of his traitorous cousin, announced
himself, and challenged him to a combat. The traitor was vanquished and
1
fell.

The common features in both the Indian and Ceylonese legends are
clear. The hero as he dies expresses his dying wish that the unborn child
should be trained to arms. Avenging death appears to be the ruling
motive in both, more explidt in the story from Malabar. In the latter,
the child bom is a son, not a daughter as in the Ceylonese story narrated
by Bell. But the two rival schools of fencing alluded to by Bdl are
indigenous to Ceylon.
Of this rivalry between groups of fighters in medieval Ceylon, Davy
gives us the historical background:
“The entire country was divided between two parties. The
champions on one side or of one part were always opposed to those of the
other. Their engagements were single combats, either with fist or with
sword and shield or with clubs. Formerly they exhibited before the
court like gladiators, endeavouring to draw blood and inflict wounds.
For each set of fencers there were ten maitres cParmes drawn from different
parts of the country to give lessons to all who wished to learn their
art.” 4

The most striking description of angam in action in Ceylon is a con-

temporary account by a Swedish Sergeant, George Andriesz (1746), in
the employ erf" the Dutch in Ceylon. “The Sinhalese soldiers are nimble

3. The background of the incidents and the fight is the theme of a popular
folksong of Malabar, a full translation of which will be found in mv studies
published in the Indian Antiquary , Vol. LXI, 1932, "A Balkd of Kerala”.
4. Davy J : An Account of the interior of Ceylon, 1821, page 15fi.
 136

and dexterous and daundess and are therefore held to be the best soldiers
in the whole of India, as indeed the Hollanders have tested and proved,
not without great damage to themselves. They also exercise themselves
surprisingly well in jumping and flying over each others’ heads with such
agility as is marvellous to watch. As reported to me with certainty, when
it comes to joining battle, they can jump clean over two or three men in

the fight, cut off at a stroke the head of some one whom they have marked
out as a victim and come back bringing the head to their commander for
which they receive a certain sum of money. The Governor of the town,
Jan Maatsuiker, during his time, had this type of stout-hearted soldiers
under his command.” A review of troops held by the Dutch Governor
is thus pictured: “There came thither five companies of Sinhalese who

marched past as follows. Two files upon two files, leaping after each other
out of the main body like acrobats, sprang clean over each other’s heads
like marmosets and fought together and they struck each other soundly on
the shields with the flats of their swords and once more drew themselves
up again in line. It was a splendid sight to witness”. (Paulusz, 1948)
This account of the exercises and military displays finds corroboration
in the graphic descriptions in many a folksong of Malabar, —in particular,

in songs singing the exploits of Tacholi Odenan and other popular heroes
of Malabar’s martial age.
On quest of the trails of the angam, I came to the ancient village of An-
gamana on a day in the summer of 1949. I discussed the subject with the
learned HighPriest of the Chakindaramaya Temple, Rev. Pandit Wara-
6
sambodhi Thera. The latter recited to me an old verse in Sinhalese:

Translation

Sevakam , angampora, yudhaye In soldiering, angam combats

and fights,

Dukdi, ankeli me hema yudhaye gambling, horn-pulling and

all such contests
Panca-kala, pasdena, jaya, gartneya- triumph over the five graces;

in these five

Tunlcrvatama avtdii memo, dipaye This Island is a beacon light

to the three worlds.

5. Quoted by Deraniyagali in Some Smhala Combative Field and Aquatic Sports

and Gama, 1951, p. 10.
 e

13?

angam in relation to its counterpart in Malabar suggest

Studies of the
Ceylon home of the institution with a good deal of reciprocity of
as the

relations between the two lands. So far as an gam and sevakam are con-
cerned, their traces may be discovered in the heaaya masks of Sinhala
folk-act which symbolise the adventurous life of men dedicated to arms,
highlighting their cute and gashes in the face. These masks are now used
in the rural folkplay of Ceylon, the Kolam, but these stage just
humorous rural episodes. (Plate 16, Pig. iii).

The angam in both Ceylon and Malabar was supported by the State,
more so in Malabar where the angam an a judicial institution took root.
Fighting champions and rivals pick up a controversy on the slightest
provocation and precipitate a fight. Rival combatants agree on an angam
combat to decide the issue and the date and the venue are fixed. A public
place is chosen and the anga tattu or the raised platform is erected where-

on the angam is to be fought. An umpire for each combatant is a rule of

combat in Ceylon as in Malabar.
In an angam, a combatant had to stake his life and therefore a last
meal was invariably arranged for each at his own home. He settled his
property and family affairs and took ceremonial leave of his kith and kin
individually. This farewell of an angam combatant is vividly described
in Malabar folk-songs.
The difference between
a Kandyan haramba salawa and a Malabar
Kalari,* lies in the range and scope of the training. At the former was
taught a variety of arts including hasthi stipe or managing of the elephant,
akun harambe , or fighting on horse-back and dkanu stipe or archery', as also
wrestling and boxing, besides the more distinctive arts of the Kalari of
Malabar, jumping and acrobatics, exercises and practices with the long
stick and the club, palisharconb or the sword and shield combat, khatge

stipe or fencing with the sword. (Deraniyagala, 1951).

The Kalari as an institution of .Malabar has been handed down to us
to this day through a few ancient families which have been since olden
days repositories of the art. The institution today is really localised
within the bounds of a regional unit of North Alalabar. In Ceylon,
however, except for the mere tradition of it surviving in certain families,
such as the Angammana, Unambuve, Kehelpannala, Galgoda, and Edan-

t>. A full account of the Kalari will be found in my book on Folk Plays
and Dames of Kerala, Ramavanna Research Institute, Trichur, 1947.
 138

duwa families, which were associated with the institution right from
Ceylon’s Middle Ages, no practical data can be gathered today from the
present descendants of these families. My
own pursuit of the trail of the
angam to Angammana near Gampola and enquiries made of the village
headman were largely fruitless.
The angam was a mortal combat and the weapons were meant to deal
death, and the death-dealing centres were known as the marma-sthana
in Malabar and the maranil in Ceylon. The masters of the angam were
distinguished by giving them the rank of Paniker in Malabar or the Pani-
7
karala in Ceylon.
Though there was a variety of weapons in use, the favoured one
was
the short sword, the churika as was known in both the lands. A good
it

illustration is given by Deraniyagala in the Text Figure 4 of his mono-

graph. 8 Churika as a weapon appears in the term Churikaggahaka,
one of the units of thearmy of KingGajabahu (174-196 A.D.). Churika
as the great implement of the Malabar angam combatant, finds
conspicuous mention in the folk-songs of Malabar. Before the date of
the engagement, one of the most trusted of the disciples is entrusted with
the serious business of proceeding to the blacksmith to sharpen the churika
to give it the deadliest cutting edge. Khudda sevakas were another group
supported by the great king Gajabahu, ( Culavamsa , Ch. LX1X, 24, 25).
The terms Sevakam and Sevakas conveyed dignity and importance. The
custodians of the art of the angam in Malabar were denoted by the group-
name Chekor, a single individual of the group being a Chekon. Gundert,

7. The term “Paniker” is derived from pani, work. It was the Panikers who
kept Kalaris or gymnastic or military schools, but in modem times, many
Panikers have taken to the teaching of letters. Some are entirely devoted
to temple services,” Thurston, Vol. 5 p. 295.
The Sinhalese counter-parts of the name are Panikkarala and Panikkiya,
used in various meaning, but generally denoting work of a professional or
technical skill. Those who took to the profession of arms were skilled in the
arts of fencing and the angam and were styled Panikkarala in medieval
Ceylon.
The large Sinhalese group of Nekati, skilled in the arts of drumming, singing
and dancing and in astrology, are addressed with the suffix Panikkiya.
So is the entire group of Sinhalese Ambattaya, reminiscent obviously of
their early claims to a higher status than they enjoy today.
Yet another application of the name in Ceylon is to the small group skilled
in the specialised field of catching and taming wild elephants: in Portuguese
tombos, these men are often referred to as “the PaniUdas of the elephants.”
8. Deraniyagala, “Some Slnhala Combative, Field and Acquatic Sports and
Games”. SpetiaZtyUmica, Vol. XXVI, Part II, p. 8.
 139

the well-known lexicographer derives the name from Ckckam, meaning

“service” chiefly about the Raja’s person. It is no doubt the same as
Smakam or Hetdkam in Sinhalese {Cha and Sa and Cha and
Ha being interchangeable in both Pali and Sinhalese) meaning ‘military
Service.’
Let me conclude this short survey of an intimate cultural link in
angam two lands, Ceylon (Kandy) and Malabar with a
in the life of the
linefrom the Malabar song of Aromer Chekavcr:
TarMil CMagalar paynUtum Kalam
When the Chingalar (the Sinhalese) were fencing at the K atari.
This specific reference to the Sinhalese in the Malabar song
mates it manifest that kinship in arras existed between Kandy
and Malabar and that it may be traced to early medieval times in
both. It lasted down to the days of the later Kandyan kings.
 XIII

SOCIETY AND THE SOCIAL COMPLEX

We have touched previously on the historical relations between South

India and medieval Ceylon. These relations were not purely political;

they impinged also on the social life of the island, —not only introducing
new elements Into the population like the ‘Ceylon Tamils’ but also influ-
encing in several ways the very pattern of social life and culture in customs,
institutions and modes of behaviour. In fact it is possible to mark out
certain areas of South between Andhra and Tamilnad on one side
India,

and Kerala on the other, from which Ceylon received cultural influ-
1
ences. Perhaps Kerala on the western sea-coast was the most import-
ant of them. Kerala’s contribution to the social complex of Ceylon can
best be studied against the medieval history of the island.

In the early centuries of the Christian era, there were three great
kingdoms flourishing in South India,—the Chera, the Chola and the
Pandya. The Chera kingdom, which roughly comprises modern Kerala,
attained the zenith of its power under Cheran Sengottuvan, contemporary
of King Gajahbahu of Ceylon (174-196 A.D.). Its highest development
in culture and social organisation synchronised with the end-part of the
Tamil Sangam epoch which closed in the 5th century A.D. In the years
that followed, disintegrating forces set in and the Chera kingdom broke up
into numerous principalities, big and small constantly at war with each
other. With the fall of the kingdom in a later period, began the develop-
ment of the Chola and Pandya Kingdoms which fought against each other
for supremacy in South India and even extending their invasion into
neighbouring Ceylon. The freelance fighting men of Kerala reinforced
the army of powerful Tamil potentates. Kerala was a land of good fight-

ing mettle — its manhood having been trained in arms since an early age,—
absorbed in the armies of the kingdoms of the neighbourhood in their

l. In the context of these studies, there is a practical difficulty in the general

application of the term ‘Malabar’ a term — which has had a long course
of usage at the hands of the chroniclers of Ceylon to mean Tamil. The
term Kerala is thus preferred to the term Malabar. Malabar is now a part
of Kerala which is one of the States of the Indian Union.

140
 141

and expeditions from time to time against Ceylon.

internecine wars
man of Kerala was that of a professional soldier in
Clearly the role of the
the employ of Tamil kings. Haring tasted this free-lance life many
Keralesc crossed over to Ceylon, either to settle to a peaceful life in the
up thdr career by taking service under Sinhalese princes.
island or to step
This must have been the origin of the unique ‘Kuruppu’ society in
Ceylon with a name that his obvious Kerala associations, recalling the
Kurup of Kerak, a section of the Naira of North Kerala. The usage all

over Ceylon is peculiar in adding the group ntme as a suffix to the sur-
name. The has an exact parallel in Kerala personal names: Sumati
Kuruppu in Ceylon is matched by the name Krishna Kurup in Kerala.
Though little of traditional Kerala culture is seen today in the social life
of the Kuruppus of Ceylon, now merged in the Sinhalese social system,
there are significant pointers to thdr ancestral social organization. Among
thdr ‘Ge’ names, for instance, is Aehchige. AchcJti means ‘mother,’
feminine of Achchrn , ‘father,’ in Makyalim. So ‘Aehchige’ may well
have reference to the matrilinear society of Kerala.
The Kuruppu of Ceylon rather pronounced somatic
as a group has
characters which is best seen Kuruppumulla of the Panadura district in
at
Ceylon. From the days of the Portuguese, the Kuruppu has been a
strong sodal unit in this region. Here is found today a number of fimilics
of the Kuruppu Aehchige clan. Families of Aehchige descent in the
locality are reputed to be more conservative than the rest. True to their
heritage, the Kuruppus figure prominently in the Portuguese times, as
wdl as in the earlier annals of the kings of Sitawaka and Kotte, for their
deeds of heroism.
So muchfor the Kuruppu. In this context let me make a passing allu~
sion to anothercommunity group called Shandar, spreading on dther side
of the Palk Straits. It constitutes a socio-economic factor of some
consequence in Jaffna and, to a less degree, in Puttalam. The group,
better known on the Indian side as the Shtnar, is a major factor in
the population of the Tirunelvelli district of the Madras State and of
Travancore,
Ceylon’s relations have been more deeply rooted in the
evidently
Cochikade is the name both
State of Cochin than in the rest of Kerala,
of a ward of the Colombo Municipality and of a town of considerable
business activity in the vicinity of Negombo. Heard in and about
Colombo, is the term ‘Cochiyan’ which generally signifies a man of
 —

142

Malabar descent or ancestry. Alternatively, the term ‘Cochin’ is used as

a more decent form to denote a man from Kerala, irrespective of its dif-

ferent parts, like Travancore, Cochin or Malabar, a relic of the old inter-
relations between Ceylon and Cochin.
Indeed there is good reason to conclude that these relations were not

j
one-way traffic. This appears from a number of sources, too elabo-
ust a
rate to be detailed here. Consider for example these observations of
Friar Odoric:
—
“And now that ye may know how pepper is got, let me tell
you that it groweth in a certain empire whereunto I came to land, the name
whereof is Minibar, and it groweth nowhere else in the world but there.
And the forest in which the pepper groweth, extendeth for a good eighteen
days’ journey, and in that forest there be two cities the one whereof is
3
called Flandarina and the other Cyngilin”. A note on this passage,
given in the footnote below, lets us into the several variants of the name,
Cyngilin, —Cynkali, Cyndlin, Singuguli,
Shinkala and Shinkali. These
names and they are not terms susceptible of explana-
are allied to Sinhala
tion in terms of anything indigenous to Kerala. But interpreted in
relation to Sinhala, the names are easily capable of being understood as
derivatives from ‘Sinhala’ or ‘Sinhali.’ Analysing their implications in
the light of the history of Ceylon round about the tenth century A.D., they

2. Expounding this statement is a note which is briefly summarised here:

“Flandarina of Edrisi is doubtless the Fandaraina of Ibn Batuta, the same
as Eandarani or Pantalayani which stood 16 miles north of Calicut. Cyngilin
is evidently identical with Cynkali of Marignoli, with the Singguli of Jorda-
nus, which he mentions as a kingdom between Calicut and Quilon. And
it is unquestionably the Shinkala or Shinkali of Abulfeda, which he couples
with Shaliyat as two cities of Malabar one of which was inhabited by Jews.
‘Shaliyat’ is also mentioned by Ibn Batuta and called by European Navigators
Chalk and Chile. It was the port next below Calicut and, next to that again
of any importance, was Cranganor”. Cathay and the Way Thither , H.S.P.
Second Series, Voi. II, pp. 132-133.
The situation of Cyngilin as “a kingdom between Calicut and Quilon,” leaves
us no doubt that it was the port of call on the Cochin littoral. Cynkali
in
or Cyndlin oi Shinkala thus was an integral part of Cianganore, the seat of
one of the olde't Malabar principalities and famous in the early traditions of
both Jews and Christians on that coast, Barbosa, in the beginning of the
sixteenth century, notices Grangulor as “occupied by a varied population of
Gentiles, Mows Indians, Jews and Christians of St. Thomas (Cranganore-
Kodungalur-Kodungalur Singugli).
Up to 1324 when the Vypin harbour was formed, the only opening in the
backwater and outlet of Periyar was at Kodungalur, which must at that time
have been the best harbour on the coast.
'Pantalayini’ continues to be known by the same name. ‘Cyingilin’ has
passed into oblivion.
 143

suggest a terrain displacement of peoples from Ceylon to the adjacent

Malabar coast, i Logan: The Maiabwr .Manual, 1887; and Tennent,
Ceylon, Vol, I. pp. 394-398—which give a full account of “extensive
migrations” during a long period of civil commotion, “from the seventh
to the eleventh century.”
In the functioning of social life, there is much that is analogous in
Malabar and Ceylon. Every family in Malabar has a ‘house-name’
which is prefixed to his personal name, corresponding to the Ge name
of the Sinhalese. A number of societies in Kerala are matrilincal.
The Nayars all over Kerala are raatrilineal, and so tire the Tiyar of
North Malabar. Matrilineal societies have the house-name of the
mother, the tarazead name. Parallel to this is the custom, in the names
of children of a Kandyan marriage in Ilinna, of the children adopting
the Ge name of cither the father or the mother.
Whether m.nrilineal or patrilineal, all families have the ‘house-name’.
The Ge name of Ceylon, like the t.iratead name of Kerala, enters so
much into social functioning that no one worries about their origins.
It is the locality sentiment and attachment to the ancestral home that

are the main factors that promote a sense of oneness with the house.
This is clear from the alternative name in Ceylon wasagama, literally
the ‘dwelling village.’ It goes back to the tribal days when a man
and his family used to be denoted by their dwelling.
Among the most potent forces that perpetuated in Kerala the
ancestral taravsad names was the matrilineal social organisation. All
the members of a family bear the taravad name, constituting one inte-
grated kinship group. Though personal names in Ceylon underwent
changes under European influence, and have largely changed from old
and purely Sinhalese names, the Ge name remains today most
stable in family life.

Sinhalese marriage customs have a good deal of correspondence to

the marriage customs of Kerala. 3 In its ceremonial celebration,
marriage is purely secular. No priest functions and no religious rites

3. The two main forms of marriage prevailing among the Sinhalese are the
dig a and the Diga is the normal mode, the patriiocal marriage, the
birtna.
wife residing in the husband’s house. Binna is the matril-ocai marriage, the
husband settles himself in the wife’s house, leaving his own family,— a form
of marriage which once prevailed in the Kandyan districts. It is very rare at
the present day.
 144

form part of the ceremonials. The social aspect has the greatest
emphasis, the ceremonials being performed under the aegis of
society
and elders of the community. Though in Buddhist Ceylon the monk
discharges many a social service, such as pint-chanting, fcana-preaching
and pansakula ceremonials, 4 and receives gifts or dane, the line is drawn
at weddings at which he has no function to discharge. As for Malabar
it is a land of few priests whose services are confined to temple
rituals,
and, except in Brahmin societies, have neither part nor lot at weddings
or other social functions. It is the elders on both sides who bless the
bridal couple.The bridegroom and the bride at a Tiyar wedding in
North Kerala kneel down at the feet of elders, thrice touching the
feet, a ceremony custom at a Sinhalese wedding. A
parallel to the
little word withworld of meaning is the word mangdam at
a
a
marriage ceremony both in Ceylon and in Malabar, particularly among
the Tiyar. The word is not in general use in this connection
outside
these two societies. Elsewhere, the word in use in Kerala is kalyanam
or sambandham.
The custom prevails at a wedding in Travancore of the bride’s
brother pouring water from a kindi (vessel) on the feet of the bride-
groom as he arrives in procession. This attention is responded to by the
bridegroom dropping a gold or a silver coin into the kindi (Text Fig. 6
page 150). The custom does not obtain in other parts of Kerala. But
it is among the marriage customs of the Sinhalese and is possibly an
instance of diffusion from one land to the other.

The maternal uncle plays a dominant part in Sinhalese marriages.

Where this is the case, it serves as a pointer to his earlier status in a
matriarchal social set-up. In Malabar although societies are largely
matrilineal, the matrilocal character of marriage has mostly
disappeared.
The wife is conducted after the
marriage to the bridegroom’s house
where she stays, A Kandyan
binna marriage on the other hand, is
a matrilocal marriage. The wife remains in her own home, where her
husband comes and lives for the life-time of the wife. In matrilocal
marriages, as in Kerala of an earlier age, the husband never lived
in

4. Piriih-dtm\ting i An explanation of the term win be found in Ch. XV,

Ben o- preaching p Id"5
: Discourses by monks at temples, on the sacred B
uddhist
texts,
BoBtafede-ceremonials : Funeral ceremonial customs.
 145

home, but only visited her daily or occasionally.

perpetuity in his wife’s
His permanent abode was his own home. But in a Kandyan btrma
marriage, the husband breaks off all connection with his own kith and
kin; the children often take the Gc name of the mother and inherit both
parents’ properties. The binna marriage found favour as it
5
perpetuated property within the family. In binna marriage, in short,
we can discern a form of marriage closely parallel to, and possibly an
extension of, the pattern of a traditional Malabar marriage.
Among other cultural links is the survival in both lands of the old-
world institution of fraternal polyandry, according to which two or
more brothers have a common wife. The pattern of polyandry is of an
institutionalised character and functions within a limited regional
range among lower classes of people, under economic conditions of life
which have very much in common. Polyandry, however, was declared
illegal in Ceylon under Ordinance No.B of 1850.

There is much that is common between Ceylon and Kerala in dress

and sartorial fashions. Both men and women of Kerala used to wear
white traditionally. Nothing coloured found favour until the
modernising tendencies of the past few decades set in, introducing
colourful sarees which have largely replaced the traditional wear,
Women of society used to wear a lower garment of superfine texture
with silver laceborder, and an upper cloth with an edging of silver
lace to match, wrapped over the bodice. This simple all-white dress,
has a charm of its own, which has its votaries even today in both
conservative and fashionable circles. In rural Kerala this two
piece garment is still the daily wear of women. The traditional dress
of Kerala has its counterpart in the common wear of Sinhalese women
of the unsophisticated set, the camboy of white or coloured chintz cloth
forming the lower garment, and the bodice and the jacket the upper
garment. The all-white dress makes the rural women folk of Ceylon and
Kerala look remarkably alike. The camboy is wrapped round the waist
secured at the left by women of Ceylon. This left-side gathering,
though not the common mode in Malabar, may be observed there too
among remote rural folks. A wrap or towel thrown over the shoulders
completes the rural habiliment of women in Ceylon villages and this
wrap also is usually white. I have often noticed the dress of women

5. Hityky: SmhaUtt Lams and Customs, 1923, pp. 167-168 and 172-173.
 146

observing the sil on Buddhist festival days in Ceylon and been struck
by its similarity to the dress of Malabar women of rural parts.
The masculine dress of Kerala is also white, saving the conventional
dress of today of western pattern. Superior English mull (thin- woven
cloth) or a silver lace-bordered cloth of fine weave, used on special
occasions, secured round the waist and falling down to the ankles, has
usually been the dress of the men of Kerala, until in recent years the
preference has grown for the fine products of Indian mills, Rural
folks,—the lower middle class and peasants in general, both men and
women, largely wear the handloom doth of local weave.
Graceful side-folds are a feature of the lower garment of women
in Kerala. This finds its counterpart in the pleated flaps of a Kandyan
sari, the ohoriya. But neither the Kandyan ahoriya, nor the lama sariya ,
the “half sari” of girls (Text Fig. 3), a very becoming dress for
the teenager, is in use in Kerala. Both patterns are obviously indigenous
to the Island. The white broad frilled ruff encircling the jacket
( manthe hette), is a feature of the “half-sari.”

There has been a good on the hair-do of the Kandyan and

deal said
the Low-country Sinhalese. earliest mention of their mode of
The
doing the hair is by Ptolemy and Agathanerus, more than seventeen
 147

hundred years ago. According to the latter, "the men who inhabit
Ceylon allow their hair unlimited growth and hind it tki crown of m
the head after the manner of mum". Tennent in quoting this passage
(Vol. 11. p. 106) remarks that "this fashion of dressing the hair is
confined to the south-west coast of the Island and prevails neither in the
interior nor among the people of North and East.” These observations
as well as Tennent’ s comments thereon are of interest, for neither men
nor women today wear their hair on the crown of the head in any part
of Ceylon. That, however, is no reason to conclude that it did not
once prevail.
Modder commenting on the above passage of Tennent observes:
"The fashion does not obtain in any part of the Island among natives.
Both the Up Country and the Low Country Sinhalar, men and women,
roll up their hair in a coil called horde which is located not on the
crown but at the back of the head. Some of the illustrations in Knox’s
book, however, show natives with their kondes on the crown, but this
is probably a mistake of the artist, as the pictorial representation given

by Tennent at page 196 of Vol. 1 1, which is a faithful delineation, belies

the author’s own description of it in the letter-press.”®
In making this stricture, Modder is fair neither to Knox nor to
7
Tennent. As a faithful chronicler of Kandyan days Knox’s evidence
cannot be challenged, and the editor’s preface to Knox makes it clear
(p. xxiii) that in the book “original illustrations” have been used. The
illustrations in question show respectively: "The Manner of their
Ploughing in Ceylon”, “the Manner of Smoothing their Fields”,
"the Manner of Treading out their Rice” and “the Execution by
Elephant”. All show men with hair knotted on the crown of
the head.
The mode of wearing the hair is a changeable fashion. If a study
were made of the hairstyles in Ceylon, Knox and Tennent will no doubt
stand vindicated. Sinhalese literature of the Middle Ages has yet to be
studied for the customs that existed in the past. An Ola Mss., of interest
in this regard is the illustrated manuscript of Vassantara Jatakaya, in
the collection of the Colombo Museum Library. The characters in
the story are shown in the costumes of the time with different modes

6. Modder, Frank: A Treatise on Kandyan Lass, Gaik, 1902 page xxix.

7. Knox —New Edition, MCMXI, pp. 14, 16 and 18.
Old Edition, pp. 10, 11 and 23.
 .

148

of wearing the hair. Of the several modes of hair-do illustrated one

is the knot on the crown of the head where it is slightly inclined to

one side, or is done up in a rounded bun gracing the temples. (Text

Fig. No. 4). Of the knot at the nape of the neck or a little higher
up also, there are a few examples. The large circular bun at the temple,
edging the ear, finds great favour.

Fig. 4. The hands or top-knot

There is at least one piece of positive evidence in the Mahavamsa on

the “top-knot”, in the account of the adventures of the Prince Para-
kramabahu: “Since he saw not one of his own followers, he at once
bound his top-knot fast, wrapped himself tightly in the woollen shawl
he was wearing” ( Cul 66-103). There are examples of the top-knot
among the Sigiriya frescoes, which also show ladies with heavy tresses
at the back. Hair-style in Ceylon has evidently gone through a number
of changes until we see it fairly stabilized in modern times in the kondae
secured at the back. The Ola Mss, of Vassantara Jatakaya referred
to may on grounds of style and treatment, be assigned to the 18th
century (Austin de Silva). The mode of wearing the hair on the crown,
or disposed on the left had a vogue, which we
temple, has obviously
today can scarcely That the style persisted among the Tamils
visualise.

of Jaffna of a generation ago has been vouched for by students of Jaffna

8
history and sociology.

8. “There is no uniformity with the Tamils

in the manner they dispose of their
hair. The men for thegreater part shave off the whole of the hair, leaving only
a small tuft called kudumai on the crown of the head... The women always
wear their hair long which being anointed with coconut or gingely oil, is
either combed and tied up in a knot called condai, behind the head or allowed
to hang on one side." Simon Casie Chitty. The Castes, Customs, Manners
and Literature of the Tamils, Reprinted, Colombo, 1934, p. 69.
 149

The Kandyan woman parts the hair at the centre of the head.
Combing the hair back, but without any partition in the middle, had
been a traditional habit with women of the Low Country villages. The
Kandyan mode is increasingly and largely adopted in the Low
Country too today under modern contacts. The women of Kerala too
as a rule wear the hair with the central partition, though combing straight
back without a partition in the middle is not unknown among rural
folks. The hair is tied up in a graceful coil which is knotted at the nape
of the neck, as is the case in Ceylon, with the difference that the knot is

rather more elongated in the Malabar mode. The coil of hair disposed in
a loose knot on one side of the head also had in the past a good deal of
vogue in Kerala and the fashion still finds occasional favour. Curiously
enough, this has been sometimes interpreted as reflecting the Naga cult
of old, the shape of the side coil resembling the hood of the snake. The
style of hair-dressing is today taking some truly fantastic turns in India
as in Ceylon.
The man of Kerala of an earlier generation used to shave off all
the hair at the back and on the sides of the head, the hair on the crown
being allowed to grow long. The long hair on the crown used to be
tied up in a coil on the crown or more often slung at the left temple.
The munkuduntai or the front knot, as it is termed, is hard to see today
even in villages, yielding to the new fashion of the hair cut short. In
Jaffna of the past generation, this mode of developing a long crown of
hair and wearing it at the temple was appropriately termed kannabtchi
or “the hair at the temple”,9 and men who stuck to this ancestral Malabar
mode came to be called Kannakuchiyar, a name which distinguished
them from those who followed the Tamil mode of wearing the hair coiled
at the back.
In the pattern of jewellery, we have a whole class of objects used in
Ceylon and in India remarkably alike. The coconut flower necklace of
Kandy, the pal mal mala, has its parallel in the Malabar necklace, having
the pattern of a coconut flower with its inset central padakam (Sinhalese
padakma). The necklace of gold fanams, the kasimala of Kerala and
Tamilnad, corresponds to the “coin necklace”, the pavun mala of
Ceylon. The flower petal pattern of the pethi mala of Kandy is another
common pattern in seven strings of varying length, fastened with a clasp.

9. Rasangy&gasn C: Ancient Jaffna, 1926, p. 282.

 150

Gedi ntalaya or necklace of fruits (rounded beads), Veegedi mala or

necklace of beads of the shape of paddy seeds, and Siribo mala or the
pepper-pattern necklace, are other common patterns. Necklaces of
leopard claws mounted in gold and strung on a gold string are worn
by girls both in Kandy and Kerala. These are as much decorative as
magical in purpose, supposed to protect the wearer from evil influences.•

In bangles and bracelets also, we have a whole class of jewellery

remarkably alike. The Kandyan rounded or ridged pattern, called the
bandwalalu, with designs were among the most favourite orna-
floral

ments of the women of Malabar a decade ago. It is a delight to see the

antique pattern still favoured by the Kandyan women. 10
Between Ceylon and Kerala in fact there is so extensive a common
ground in home-life and domestic usage that one may start to explore
it from Amme , the little Ceylonese child’s call for its mother which

rings a trifle different from Amma heard in South Indian Tamil homes.

The kindi of Kerala, a brass or bell-metal

ware moulded in a traditional pattern, with
an elongated spout (Text Fig. 6) is an indis-
pensable domestic equipment of all homes in
Kerala, rich or poor. It finds a proper place
in a corner of the long verandah of a Kerala
house. It remains filled with water to the
brim, and when used up is replenished. A
visitor approaching the house goes direct to
the kindi of water and it is only after washing his feet that he steps on
the verandah. All day every one uses the kindi of water for all their

ablutions. A more useful domestic hard to imagine.

vessel it is

Ceremonial occasions are many in the life of a household in Kerala

which has given to the land the name of Karma Bhumi or the land of
rituals, and the kindi of water has its place in all rituals.

In Ceylon the kendiya is the same type of vessel, but it is no longer

of domestic use. It is today a museum piece. Though it has lost its

place in the home, it has still its place in Buddhist temple rituals.

Western habits of life in Ceylon have put the kindi of water, for washing
the hands before or after eating, now out of use. The existence of the

30. For illustrations of Kandyan jewellery, see Ananda K. Coomaraswamy,

Mediaeval Sinhalese Art, second edition, 1956, plates XLVIII, XLIX and L.
 —

151

same type of domestic vessel known under the same name is obviously
not fortuitous.
Another household article is the spittoon of bronze or brass with
the shouldered neck-like mouldings, which has given it the name of the

“necked” spittoon as known in North Kerala. In Sinhalese households,

wherever the habit of betel chewing prevails, the spittoon (the padik-
katrn) is in common use. —
These essentially of the same pattern
vary in size as in Kerala from the tall ones almost level with the bed,
to the smaller sizes.

Yet another object which has lost its function,

conspicuous neverthe-
less in ancient Sinhalese houses, is the hanging lamp of Kerala type, the
bronze lamp in two tiers, the upper one with a series of grooves for

taking rag wicks and burning coconut oil. 1 ’ I have heard it said
that in Ceylon too in the medieval days, it used to be the practice in
Sinhalese homes for this light to be lit first before the kerosine oil
lamp is lit, as is the practice in rural Kerala to this day, where the lamp
fully lit is ceremoniously taken from the inner corridor and brought and

suspended by its chain attachment in the front verandah before night-

fall. This is the occasion for children to wash their limbs, and sit cross-
legged, singing the Sandhya Vanmmam, the evening prayers, invoking
divine blessings. Nolonger serving its purpose in Sinhalese homes,
this artistic brassware is treasured as an object of antiquity or art.
In domestic rituals as at pint chanting and in celebration of the
Sinhalese New Year, it has its place. A large number of these
lamps are among the collections in the Colombo and Kandy National
Museums.
Metal ware has evidently been an extensive industry in medieval
Ceylon, as seen in the numerous articles unearthed at Anuradhapura.

Among such objects is the large, circular, massive, and shallow vessel,
often a yard or less in diameter, a specimen of which is in the metal
ware gallery of the Colombo National Museum. This type is still
in daily use in the larger households in Kerala in the preparation of
Ayurvedic medicated oils.

Yet another aspect of the study, too specialised to be adequately dealt

with in the present context, is presented by the field of linguistics. The

11. De Silva, C. M. Austin: “Sinhala Ceremonial Brass Lamps”, Spolia Zeylamat

Vol. 29, Part II, 1961, Hates II and III.
 152

striking similarity between Malayalam and Sinhalese script, has long been
11
observed. The remarksof Louis Nell, in a paper read long ago before
the Royal Asiatic Society of Ceylon, may be recalled in this connection;
“A Malayalam grantham has all the look of a Sinhalese Ola Mss. The
character of the letters is strikingly similar.” The script resemblance
isone that is obvious, and there is also a number of words common to
both the langauges.
A whole set of spontaneous unsemantic sounds and calls in the folk-
ways of the two lands, —sounds which, for want of more expressive
term, may the called “primitive calls” considering that they are a heritage
of the primitive past, is part and parcel of both. These cover a wide
field of the emotional life of peoples,— ejaculatory, inter jectional and
exclamatory sounds expressive of joy or sadness, approval or disapproval
content or discontent, comradeship or defiance and challenge to arms.
Such too are sounds of anguish, of bragging,
affliction or suffering, as also
boasting or swagger. The remarkableof these guttural,
similarity
throaty, discordant and dissonant sounds used by folk of the two lands
is a phenomenon obvious to one who observes and follows the folkways.

Among the most common exclamatory expressions are ‘appo’ and

‘ayyo’ and a whole series of guttural sounds which cannot be reduced
to writing. The mode of conveying the idea of distance in both lands,
the ‘hoo’ call of the villager, is The expression Hoovak
the same.
pramarn dura in Sinhalese has its counterpart in the Hoo pad of Malabar,
meaning the distance covered by a ‘hoo’ call.

12. Nell, ^Louis^ The Ethnology of Ceylon, J.R.A.S. (C.S.), VoL XU

 XIV

THE SINHALESE NEW YEAR’S DAY

The first day of the Sinhalese month of Bak, the Alut Avuruddu
Mangalya, the Ceylonese New Year’s Day, is celebrated as the greatest
national festi val of the Sinhalese, It is acclaimed as the “National Day”
and coming docs not take the people unawares. To the villager it is
its

a time of rest from labour and he welcomes it in the right holiday mood.
Houses and premises take on a new coat of white or colour wash; the
kitchen is provided with a new set of pots and pans; provisions stored for
the New Year’s delicacies and and new clothes and dresses are
feast,

bought betimes for the family. As it is heralded by the firing of crackers,

—
-—these too are essential, the makers of and dealers in fireworks do roar-
ing business. The day is the same in significance as the Vishu day,
the New' Year’s Day of Malabar, and the Tamil New Year’s day.
As the astronomical New Year’s day, with the sun shifting from the
Mina rasi (Pisces) to the Meska rasi (Aries) the day has far more claims
to be the New Year’s day proper than the first of January, which has no
such astronomical distinction. The last few hours of the old year,—the
interval of time between the passing of the sun from one sign of the zodiac
to another— is termed the Norm-gate in Ceylon, It is considered inauspici-
ous and by convention the period is devoted to religious services in temples
and the offering of flowers to the Buddha. It is this conventional observ-
ance that has possibly given the alternative name of Punya-Kdla to this
period. The observance is for the purpose of counteracting the evil
tendencies of the Nona-gate. Others, so inclined, may spend the time
in amusements, disporting themselves on the swing 'TJntillava)
(
or play-
ing cards or engaging in any other indoor or outdoor games.
The New Year’s Day, as I write, is in process of bring bom.
The Norm-gate begins at 9-40 p.m. today, when all work must
cease. Nothing is either given or taken in hand. If one asks
for a fire-brand in the village or a box of matches to light

a cigar, it is toon the ground for one to pick up. Astronomi-

be left

cally the day is known all over Malabar as Mesha Sankramam, and

popularlyboth in Malabar as in Ceylon, the Scmkarantt, tbeperiod corres-

153
 154

ponding to the Nona-gaU. The Malabar convention is for every Hindu

householder to present a kani, literally a ‘sight/ to counteract the evil
influences of the period, and to usher in the New Year under the
best of auspices, The kani is an ensemble of things auspicious,
artistically laid out in the front room of the house. They are things
of good augury, calculated to refresh the mind and please the eye.
It is not all for the sake of aesthetics or art, however, for among the
specialities of the day is the jaggery-based oil cake, identically the same
as the kevun, the favourite sweet delicacy of the Sinhalese. Though
kevun may be made all through the year, it is particularly indicated for
and is indispensable in the New Year’s confectionery in both the lands .
1

Besides the oil-cakes, there are other items in the making up of the
Kani. In Malabar they are an ala manuscript (grandham ), generally one
of the sacred epics, gold jewellery, a silver-laced white cloth, silver coins,
a cucumber and a coconut cut in two, a string of green mangoes, samples
of Navadhanyam or nine kinds of grain, rice, ragi, sesamum, maize etc. a
cut section of the ripe varaka jak 2 , a tender coconut with the green outer
fibre removed and so shaped as to stand on the floor. Sprigs of the
bright yellow Kama flowers (Casia fistula) stuck in, give colour to
the ensemble. These or as many items as can be conveniently group-
ed together are arranged in a bright bell-metal plate and the rest
disposed all A kindi of water, a ceremonial brass lamp
around.
with all wicks fully
and a measure of rice, complete the kani.
lit,

What is thus presented to view on the New Year’s morning is a sample

of the bounty of Nature, of all that is bright and gay, the charm of the —
land presented in sample in this symbolic domestic ritual. On a grass

1. The process of preparing the kevun ox'kondae appam as it is significantly

termed is interesting to watch. The woman sits in front of the hearth with
a round-bottomed pan in which coconut oil is set to boil. The batter is
readily prepared by mixing coconut-honey in finely sieved flour in a little
hot water. The consistency of the batter is tested by putting a little of it in
the boiling oil and seeing whether it behaves all right. A ladleful is now
poured into the boiling oil. It begins to set and the centre rises. Into the
rising centre is dropped a little more of the batter. The hondae effect
is obtained by inserting an ekel at the top and turning it round and round.
The boiling oil is splashed over the top and over the base of the kevun. As
it gets the typical brown colour, the kevun is taken out and dropped in a
plate. The process goes on until the batter is all finished and a good stock
of the delicious sweet is accumulated. The Malabar counterpart of the
kevun is the neyi appam, literally the oil-cake. In Malabar confectionery,
as in Sinhalese, the kevun has a favoured place.
2. A Malayalam word for the hard variety of the Jak, the same word as in
Sinhalese.
 155

mat spread in front on the kani, sits the mother. Taking in her hand
the Ola Mss., replaced today by the printed book, she reads a few
verses. Every member of the family as he gets up from bed, sets his
eyes on the shining kani, displayed at the proper time well before dawn,
forecast of prosperity and plenty in the coming year. In Ceylon
though an elaborate kani is not laid out as in Malabar, what serves very
much the same purpose maybe seen in Buddhist Sinhalese households.
The ceremonial hanging lamp of the same type as the bronze hanging
lamp of Malabar is valued as an object of art. It is taken out and rigged
with twisted rag wicks in the slots. Fed with coconut oil, the wicks light
up fully. In its soft light, mixed with the fragrance of sprigs of the
sweet-scented flowers of the alariya (the "temple tree” of Ceylon), fruits
—
and betel spread on trays the splendour of it becomes visible, of this
welcome to the New -Year morn.
The village astrologer has his part to play. He forecasts the appro-
priate time for the kani, the prospects of the coming harvest, rain and the
weather, the auspicious dress to be worn, and the general outlook for the
corning year. He never misses a visit to each household with his fore-
cast,—the vuhu-phdam as it is termed,—which is inscribed on a strip of
palm leaf with the traditional implement, the iron stylus. The written
forecast is left at each bouse, a service for which the astrologer gets a small
cash present. It is interesting to note that the custom prevailed tradi-
tionally in Ceylon and possibly still prevails in rural pans, particularly in
the South. The printed panchanga lip*, however, has largely replaced
the old written forecast of the visiting astrologer in Ceylon.
To continue this description of the customary observances, —
the
re-lighting of the hearth is done at the prescribed time, 9-48 a.m. fiudng
the North, and the New Year’s first meal of far* bath, 3 cooked. The
auspicious dress of the year is worn. Dressed in the prescribed clothes,
the first meal, the kiri hath*, is eaten at 11.33 a,m.
Kfri bath occupies the first first meal of the New Year’s
place in the
day in Cochin too, as in Ceylon, and must first be eaten before other items
in the menu of the New Year’s meal. The dress varies with the Year,
The day is also the annual day of forgiveness. With the bulath urula

3. Kiri, milk, and bath, rices kiri bath is rice cooked with coconut milk.
The custom of the making and eating of kiri bath is observed in Cochin aj
among the Sinhalese, on the New Year’* day. It is not a custom in other
parts of Kerala to my knowledge.
 156

or the roll of betel, the family members approach each other. The
youngster bows to the elder, with hands in namaskara pose, and begs his
forgiveness for all transgressions of the year. It is an annual humility
ceremonial.
An age-old custom is that the new-year meal must be enjoyed with
the hat malum At the meals the head
or the curry of seven vegetables.
of the house sits at the head of the table. He feeds each one of the family
with a morsel of food with his own hand. The meal over, a ceremonial
exchange of presents, called genu denu, literally “give and take,” follows,

accompanied by distribution of money to the members of the family and

the servants. Immediately afterwards, a guest is invited,-— one with a
reputation for good luck. He is duly served with the New Year’s sweets
and delicacies, and, afterpartaking of the hospitality, takes leave blessing
the household. Close on his heels, come others who are given whatever
is left over of the refreshments and a small cash gift each. The idea is to
receive the year’s first gift in money from the hands of a lucky person.
These token gifts have their parallel in Malabar in the custom of
VishuKayyittam or gifts in cash made by the head of the house to all
members of the family and to all others who call on this sacred day to pay
their regardsand receive the customary kayyittam, literally gifts receiv-
ed in the hand. This domestic custom has in course of time developed
in Ceylon, as well as in Malabar, into the widespread practice of receiv-
ing money at the hands of reputedly lucky persons.
Peculiar to Ceylon is the telegana avurudda, the ceremonial oil-bath
day. The oil is something very special, a composition of coconut-oil
with extracts of medicinal herbs. One of the householders undertakes
this preparation. The time for the bath isann ounced by the primitive
call of the village, the “hoo” shout. Men and women troop along and are
accommodated on chairs or on a long bench. The master of ceremonies,
taking the oil in hand, dips Ms fingers into the receptacle and applies
the oil to the head. It is symbolic, for the oil has to go round to all who
come to take part in the ceremony. As folks come, each is served with
a little of kevun and kin bath. Open
air bath in village tanks is in
great favour, and the bathers proceed to the nearest tank where they
enjoy water-sports and make merry. The bath over, . they hasten
homewards.
A rdic of feudal Malabar is the ceremonial calls by tenants on the
landlords with basket-loads of the best bunches of bananas and other
 )

157

produce of the land- The tenants also receive presents in return in money
and new clothes. In Ceylon villages on the New Year’s occasion may
be wen streams of villagers with rolls of beta’ cm their way to pay cere-
monial calls on their social superiors or landlords.
Amusements and sports of a wide variety are a feature of the New
Year celebration. Folk plays are staged all over Ceylon. As for outdoor
sports, the swing (uncillava is the most favourite. Swings are of several
types. The most popular type is the gus undilava which is suspended
from a branch of a high tree, the type common to all Kerala during seasons
of amusement. The mechanised swings are the katuru uncillava (the
"scissors” swing) and the rarer ones, the bambara uncillava 4 spinning
like a huge top on its axle planted in the ground, and the kudu uncillava
with a cage-like structure, from the outer frames of which are suspended
anumber of swings revolting up and down with a turn of the large wheels
on a central axle., the whole contraption erected between two stout coconut
palms.
Nothing is more typical of the spirit of the New Year in a Ceylon
villagethan the rabana the large single-faced drum of the village. With
the rabana installed on its stand women sit round it on low stools or on
their haunches and sing the raban-kavi (folk songs): to the rhythmic
drumming, with outstretched fingers invoking the Alut Avurudda
Devataya , the god of the New Year strides over the lives of the village
folks filling than with the hopes and aspirations of the year just bom.
The Sun God is truly the deity of the New Year’s Day. In
Ceylon, among the most meaningful of the plays of the season, is the
kalagcdi seldom already narrated, a play with considerable magical import. It
is a play which prevailed in Kerala also in early days by the name of Kudo.
Kuthu. from kudan, a pot and kuthu, play. Maidens, holding a pot in
hand, dance blowing into the pots, making a dull roaring sound, and the
pots am thrown into the air and caught again and passed on from one dancer
to the other. The play in its origin was special to the New Y ear, performed
to propitiate Iru Devi, the Sun God, and Mihi Kata, the Earth goddess,
and the four guardian gods. One of the most popular and colourful of

4. —
For a full study of these, please see my papers- Village Sports: “Bambara
Undliata,” New lotnka, Vol. l,No. 1, 1951 and “Folk Sports: The Swing
in the New Year Day of the Sinhalese”, Spdia Zeylanica, Vol. 27, Part 1,
1953.
 158

the folk plays of modem school girls, its symbolism is now all but
forgotten.
The easy-going life and the leisurely pace set by the season
on in the atmosphere of the village, until it imperceptibly merges in the
villager’s daily routine. Work resumed at an auspicious hour and the
is

festivities of the New Year succumb to the stress and strain of everyday
life, until the turn of time’s wheel brings the year to a close and another
year is duly bom.
 XV

MAGIC, ASTROLOGY AND FOLK RELIGION1

In a paper on “The PilU Charm” read before the Anthropological

Society of Bombay cm 22nd Sept. 1922, Pertold reviewed the conventional

conceptions of the “Charm” in Ceylon and its links outside the island: “ The

teas today of most of the speculations on or studies of Sinhalese magic

is the prevailing popular literature of the Island in the form of folk poems
or Ravi-ringing and the details send rituals of the folk cults including
magic and charms. While these are informative to a certain extent,

speculating on the original home-land or focus of dispersal is mostly

pure fancy or poetical license.”

Commenting on the probable centre of dispersal of the Pills magical

practices, however, I’ertold observes that while “we cannot draw any
definite conclusion about the exact place of origin of the charm, we can
at least judge from it that the charm came to Ceylon from somewhere in

India, most probably from a country inhabited by Dravidians in so remote

a time, that the tradition became confused and uncertain”. The country
from which the charm came into Ceylon, according to Pertold, might be
“the country at the mouth of the Kisma whence the charm was brought
to Ceylon by pilgrims from which was a prevalently Buddhist
that region
country, the same Andhra influences are generally obvious
as Ceylon”,
in the magical cults of the Sinhalese, some of which have been revealed
to us by Saratchandra. Yet no one who has pursued the subject can
M to be struck with the parallelism of thePilli charm of Ceylon with the
Filta charm of Malabar, the general character of which has been described

by Thurston 8 and Innes* We may however, assume two influences

from India on this particular magical charm of Ceylon—one from Andhra
on the mtharity of Pertold, and the other from Malabar,
Besides this one, there is another magical rite called pern in Malabar

1. Journal of the Anthropological Society of Bombay , Vol. XII, No. 5 , 1923

pp, 594-609.
2. Thurston, E Cams
: and Tribes of South India, Vol. VI, The Malabar,
Cochin and Trsvancore Parayam.
3. Innes, CIA : Qaxettur of the Medabar District, pp. 134-135.

159
 160

which also has its counterpart in pern kima of Ceylon. Pena in Malabar
was an elaborate spiritual ceremonial of two or three days’ duration, reach-
ing its dimax with the holding of communion with the spirits of the dead.
Itwas a welfare ceremony for the whole house, performed in the following
wise. The astrologer- cum-spiritualist held a seance with the medium,
a maiden who Sat cross-legged before a cabalistic diagram drawn on
the floor, termed the kalam. Judging from the popular favour it finds
today, though performed on a miniature scale in Ceylon under the name
pern kima, crystal gazing in weird light being its essential technique it

was perhaps an elaborate rite in medieval Ceylon as much as in the

Malabar some decades ago. In rural areas of both lands, pern kim
has degenerated into something like clairvoyance, with the magician
announcing the presence of the spirits of the dead and holding conversa-
tion with them. These conversations range from illness in the family to
domestic upsets and dissensions. Pena is a Malayalam word meaning
‘spirits of the departed’.
The village astrologer of Ceylon or Kerala may be of low social

standing, but there is no person more indispensable in village life. West-

ernization has caused no change in Ceylon in this respect and less so in
conservative Kerala. Every child has his horoscope cast by the astrologer,
as soon as the child is bom. The horoscope has been described as a man’s
passport through life at every step. The astrologer is summoned for
interpretation of the horoscope. Illness or ill luck is ascribed to evil

influences, the operation of which only the astrologer can reveal, and he
is duly called in for prasmrn, a term which denotes in Malayalam an astro-

logical investigation.

In Ceylon as in Kerala the wearing of amulets is very common.

Directed against evil influences, or to gain personal ends, or generally
towin success in life, these are mantrams and charms figured in diagrams
and drawn on copper or silver foils or even on paper and tightly rolled
and enclosed in a gilded or silver tube. Suspended from the neck as men
and women in villages usually wear them, these are as much ornamental
as magical in purpose. In Kerala, however, the usual practice is to wear
them round the waist. These amulets are called urukku or raksha in
Malabar; yantta or the ymtraya in Ceylon and parts of Cochin.
The astrologer is the practitioner of magic and charms. He
prescribes the particular raksha one should wear, depending on the resuk
erf his investigation. He makes the amulet himself; otherwise an
 161

expert in the particular line is requisitioned.

In the Kandyan provinces, the Nekati (the astrologer, from Nekeia,
a star) is one well versed in magic and charms. The Jivama, meaning the
vitalising of an ymtraya, is a secret process with a ritual of its own.
Mantrams in Sinhalese magical lore are either of pure Makyakm phra-
seology, the same in many instances as those of Kerala, or Sinhalese with
a large admixture of Makyakm words and expressions.
The an amulet in Kerala as well as in Ceylon
simplest form of
» the charmed thread worn round the wrist as a protection against evil
influences. The yellow charmed thread ( apanula) has its place in Pirith-

dunting. As monks chant Pirith, the assembled men sit with the thread
{pkith mila) held in thdr hands. "When the chanting is over, the thread
is broken into strips which are worn round the wrist. This obviously
is a folk element that Buddhism in Ceylon has assimilated.
Folk religion is which
a vast field of cults and magical practices
are fundamentally alike, though each land has its own special features.
At nightfall the villager in Ceylon lights a coconut oil-lamp on a stand
in the garden, the pahem pda by the side of his house. This keeps
bunting all night The idea is to propitiate the Huniyam devatava.
The premises must be kept dean, for prosperity is supposed to follow
the visit of the god of the night. Inside are kept pictures of Maha
Vishnu and of the Buddha.
This customary setting up of a light in the garden by the Ceylonese
villager recalls the oil-wick kept lit at
dusk in the open yard of a Malabar
house, a practice now growing obsolete. This single wick is lit and
on the premises, at the same time as the ceremonial
deposited at a fixed spot
lamp is brought out and hung from the eaves of the front verandah. This
wick is a symbol of the cult of ancestral spirits, to whom the light is
dedicated. The spirits of the dead are the “guardian angds” of the
household and are invoked in difficult situations.
The pahom of Ceylon
a ceremonial light to the gods, but in
is

fern ranges from the very simple to the highly complex patterns with
it

decorative features adding up to an exquisite work of art.

The masks made in Ceylon mark an advanced folk art. A counter-
part in Ceylon of Bhagavati, a tutelar deity of Kerala, is the goddess
Pattino, mainly a protective deity, though the goddess was not without
her fearful aspect in the early Middle Ages of Ceylon. The Pattini
legend has had long currency in Kerala, where the famous Bhagavati shrine
 !

162

of Kodungallur (Crangmore) in Cochin is reputedly dedicated to her.

Occasionally too, at least in North Kerala, I have heard folk tales about
the appearance of Oita Mulachi,4 or the “single-breasted woman,”—an
allusion to the legend that she had plucked and thrown away one of her
breasts while cursing the Pandyan King and the city of Madura for having
lulled her husband Koval an under the King's orders.

Both in Ceylon and in Kerala, folk religion has a strong admixture

of the ‘Cult of Spirits’. In Kerrala, it is localised in small masonry shrines
These shrines with wide open yards and
scattered in the rural parts.
small square masonry platforms around are a feature of North Kerak
villages. It is not a single spirit or deity that is propitiated at these shrines,

but quite a crowd of them each with own sethis rituals and invocatory
stotrams (the tottam pattu* of Malayakm folk literature). Lest they
should do evil, they are duly propitiated with an annual celebration of two
5
or three days’ duration, all through the night and the small hours .

In Ceylon a shrine habitation is given mainly to four tutelary d .-itics,

—Maha Vishnu, Saman, Aiyanar and Katatagama.These have each a
6
devala housing the god, and so has the goddess Pattini , most favourite
with the Ceylon villager. Most of these enjoy an annual celebration, with

gorgeous peraheras— for example, the Saman Devala perahera of

Ratnapura,
A gam mdurn, a temporary shrine for the ceremonial worship of
the goddess Pattini is an interesting institution in Ceylon. Worship at

a gam rnaduma generally marks the finale of a series of An-Keliya contests

in honour of the goddess. Not only is the goddess Pattini worshipped,
but a whole hierarchy of gods and spirits are invoked and impersonated
at a gam madma in the course of one night’s celebration, and offerings
are given to these spirits and deities at the altar of offerings.

Ceylon’s speciality, however, is the cult oftheFaLfc, a term generally

applied to a large class of troublesome spirits of fearful aspect. One of
these spirits, as folk superstition has it, may waylay a lone woman, quite
by chance and not by design, and she becomes at once possessed
by the particular demon. An experience of the sort was the fate of a

4. In the words otta and tottam, the ‘t’ is pronounced as in 'get’

5. Described in my paper on the “Spirit Dances of Kerala”. Proceedings*
All India Oriental Conference, IXth Session, 1942, and in my monograph,
Folkplays and Dances of Kerala, Chapter III.
6. See “The Pattini cult as a Socio- religious Institution” Ethnological Survey —
—
of Ceylon 1950: Spolia Zeylanica, Vol. 25, Pt. 2, 1950 for a full study.
 —

163

middle-aged woman of the village of Mampac in the Western Province

of Ceylon some time in thesummer of 1 948. The Yakka she ms possessed
by was that frightful demon Gopalu Yakka, or the Yakka of the cowherds.
The exorcism that was staged to rid her of the demon
was among the most elaborate that I ever witnessed. Spirit possession
isan uncanny phenomenon, of which a good deal is seen or heard of
both in Ceylon and Kerala. Exorcisms are occasions for elaborate charms
and magical incantations and ceremonials.
Simple rituals against among the most common of
the evil eye are
household rites. The more them occupy a whole night
elaborate of
and continue up to the morning hours. These rites are seen in their
traditional cult- forms in Ceylon, but in Kerala the more elaborate and
expensive forms of these ceremonials have fallen into desuetude.
The professional shaman personnel of Kerala are the Panan of
the South, and the Malayan of North Kerala; the corresponding classes
in Ceylon are the Beravaya or the Nekati, and the Oli of the Sinhalese
provinces.
On Fridays in rural Sinhalese households may be seen a simple
rite against the evil eye. The mother takes in hand a little quantity of
the red chillies, mustard seed and waves the closed hand thrice over
salt,

the head of the child, muttering the words, “ amaha , kata maha, hova,
durazeeva" J This also has its counterpart in rural Malabar, except that,
as a rule, it is a done there without accompanying words.
silent rite

In Buddhist Ceylon, folk religion fells under two main cults, the —
cult of high Gods, and the cult of the Yakkas. Another class of supernatu-
ral beings are the Rakusu (Rakshasa), who arc either demons or planetary

deities. The ceremonies differ according to the particular deity worship-

ped. The priests of the gods axe the Kapttrda or the kapuzoa, and the
pattinihami of the Pattini cult. The priests of the Yakkas are the katta-
diym % or the yakkadura or the yakdena. The rites of the cult of planetary
deities are conducted by the bah edura before the figures of the planetary
deities or paintings of the Rakusu.
When a man is passing through adverse times, a bedi is supposed

7. ‘‘Evil eye, evil mouth (or tongue), and evil thoughts, do not approach.”
English translation.
8. I'rom Tamil, Kaitadi; kattu-tadi —
he who is temporarily possessed of the
,

power of divination for the purpose of uttering oracles Tamil Lexicon,

Madras, Vol. II. Part 1 , p. 648.
—
 104

to be effective in counteracting evil influences and to usher in better times*

Figures are painted on cloth or images modelled in clay and attractively

—
painted to feature the planetary dieties Ravi (Sun), Chandra (Moon),
Kuja (Mars), Buddha (Mercury), Qura (Jupiter), Sukra (Venus), Sani

(Saturn), and Rahu and Ketu (Dragons). Offerings are made of food,

flowers, incense, lights and gold or silver coins. Invocatory verses are

sung to each deity, with the aturaya— the beneficiary, reclining on a

couch or seated on a mat, facing the ceremonials. bali lasts from one A
to three days. The chanting is from memory to the dulcet tinkling of a
small hand-bell held in the right hand of the baliedura with the , sprig

of an arecanut flower in the left. The sound of a softly-beaten drum

provides a musical undertone.
In Kerala, bali is either a ceremony in the propitiation of ancestral
spirits who arc supposed to exercise a beneficent influence on the house-
hold, or a ritual of exorcism. The term bali means a sacrifice, and sacrificial
offering is the essence of the cult. In the bali of North Malabar, whether
meant for ancestral spirits or for exorcism, a blood-offering is made of
a cock, sacrificed at the altar by the Shaman, the mantrikan or the karmi.
When it is used in exorcism ceremonials, it is called in Malabar bali

tizMchhd. Diagrams are drawn by the karmi on the floor of the verandah
with rice-powder, charcoal and saffron. A triangular platter is made of
strips of plaintain stem -with tender leaves of coconut palm stuck in all

around it, forming a receptacle for offerings. Placing this on the diagram,
beaten rice (aw'/), parched paddy {malar), and bran {tavitu) are strewn
around it. Rag-wicks {pandam) are lit on it. The mantravadi performs
the rites with due ceremonials, chanting charms. Lighted wicks (tin ) are
waved over the head of the person to be exorcised. The person is invari-
woman. Vessels of coloured water (kuruti), holding a solution of
ably a
churam and saffron, simulating blood offering, and another of charcoal
solution, are at this stage waved over her. Lastly, the bali pandi into
which the spirit which possessed the woman is supposed to have been,
conveyed, is taken in hand and waved over her with the offerings
crushed together into a ball. When the ceremonies are concluded, the
tmntramdi leaves the house with the receptacle of the bali and drops
it at some out-of-the-way place.
 XVI

JAFFNA LAWS AND CUSTOMS

The T&aedamm is a collection of the old customary laws and

mages that prevailed in Jaffna in the North of Ceylon. The collection

was made in 1707 under the orders of the Dutch Government and was
then submitted to and approved by twelve Muddlian (leading men) -

and finally pronrulpted as an authoritative exposition of the customs

and usages of Jaffna. Mayne, in his classic work on Hindu La&, was
perhaps the first writer to point to the “remarkable similarity” between
1
this work and the Marumakkattayam, the law-code of Malabar. Scholars
8
of Jaffna have pursued the point further and brought out the essential
common features between the two bodies of laws.
Both make the fundamental distinction in matters of inheritance

between ancestral and self-acquired property — the former in Malabar law

called tarmd and muthmam in Jaffna land. In both
the latter called
systems, ancestral property devolves on the females of the family from
generation to generation, and this forms the basis of the chidamm or the-
dowry in Tesavafamm. It is an adaptation of the mstrilineal principle
of the Marumakkatayam Law of Malabar, in its specific application to

the succession of property in a tavazhi tarawad. The Karanavan in a

Malabar matrilineal family, bestowing his self-acquired property on
children can create a number of tavazhis, a term which may be derived
from the two words — tayi, a Tamil word, meaning mother, and vaxhi

way or manner of descent.

As the incidence of a tavazhi is not well-known outside Malabar,
an illustration will make the point clear. A, a Karanavan, settles on his
daugh ters. B, C and D, and two sons E and F, a house and lands. These
children start what is termed a tavazhi with the eldest male member as the

1. Mayne : Hindu Lan, 7th Edition, p. 3.

2 . Notably, Tsmbiab, H.W., in The lam
and Customs ofJaffna, 1950 and
Lms end Customs of the Tamils of Ceylon, 1954, both of which have been
largely drawn upon in the writing of this chapter.
A detailed study of the subject will be seen in my paper “The
Malabar Inhabitants of Jaffna”; Sir Paul Pieris Felicitation Volume,
Colombo, 1956, pp 114-130.

165
 166

Kaianmn, who manages the property in the interests of his sisters and
sisters’ children. On the demise of the Karanavan, all his right ceases.

His wife and children do not come in for any share of the property. The
tavazhi is a unit of its own, with all the incidence of a tarwad in miniature.
A large tarward, becoming too unwieldy, may also end in its being split up
into a number of tavazhis. It is noteworthy that in a Karanavan’s settlement
of property on the children, particular solicitude is evinced for the daughters

in preference to the sons,— Chidanam or dowry in Tesawalamai being a

development of the matrilineal principle of a tavazhi in Malabar law. In

the event of a tavazhi becoming extinct for failure of heirs, the property
devolving on the next of kin of a matrilineal tavazhi, has its counterpart
in Tesavalamai in that "females inherit the property of females, and that a
downed sister succeeds to another dowried sister.” The Law of adoption
in Tesavalamai, which is now obsolete, the law of Otty* mortgage and the
law of pre-emption* peculiar to Tesavalamai, are other items adopted from
the Marumakkattayam Law of Malabar.
A main aspect of Marumakkattayam law is reflected in the obser-

vations in the Tesavalamai, that “it is agreeable to the people, and especially
it conserves the rights of women, they could have separate property, a

3. Usufructuary mortgage special to the code of Tesawalamai is designated Otti

—
mortgage a form of mortgage essential to property laws of Malabar. The
early settlers from Malabar coast brought it with them to Jaffna where it
underwent changes, Orti has been defined as “Usufructuary mortgage of lands
situated in the Northern Province of Ceylon for a definite sum of money or
other legal consideration, on condition that in lieu of interest the mortgagee
should take the produce of the land and that it should be redeemable at
Certain fixed periods of the year after due notice has been given”. The
mortgagee is entitled to enjoy the produce of the land in lieu of interest.
He takes the whole of produce and is not bound to account for the profit to
the mortgager. Otti mongage applies to all lands situated in the Northern
Province. The Om' bond is redeemable only after due notice has been given
to the mortgagee and at a particular period. Tambiah, H.W. : The Lam
and Custom erf the Tamils of ffafjna, p. 275.
4. Pre-emption is "the primary right of a co-owner that his fellow co-owner
should not sell his share to a stranger without giving him notice. Tesavala-
mai has ruled that when any person had sold a piece of land, garden, etc.
to a stranger without having given previous notice thereof to his heirs or
partners and to such of his neighbours whose grounds are adjacent to his
land and who might have the same in mortgage, should they have been
mortgaged, such heirs, partners and neighbours were at liberty to claim or
demand the preference of such lands.” ( Tesavalamai Code , VII, 1). The
principles underlying the provisions of Tesavalamai Code are vital to the
inalienability of ancestral property of a Marumakaitayam Tarwad and it is
reasonable to conclude that it was brought by the early Malabar settlers to
Jaffna peninsula. Tambiah, H. W. : p. 285, et. seq.\ “Tesavalamai Pre-
emption Ordinance”, No. 59 of 1947.
 167

portion of the acquired property and their husbands cannot dispose of

their property". The Tmamkatm is both personal and local law. It is
personal in that it and local in that
applies to certain persons only in Jaffna
it These two feilures of the Tcsavalamai distin-
applies to Jaffna alone.
guish it from both the Hindu Law and the Roman Dutch Law. The
only code of law that has not only the closest parallel to it but derives
its principles from it in the matter of the status mid rights of women is-

the Malabar Marumakkattayam Law. The Tesavalamai it is obvious, >

gives us just a foothold from which we can extend our further enquiries
into the field of cultural inter-relations.
Study in some of the habits ami social customs of the people would
lead us to the same fiekL It is significant that the fashion of ‘side -knot*
persisted among the Jaffna men down to recent days. Rasanayagam,
'writing in 1926, telh us “that the relic of the Malabar custom of wearing
the side-knot of hair continued in Jaffna about 40 to 50 years ago”,
till

ox even later, as I am reliably These conservative die-hards

informal
were called, as Rjasanayagam tells us, by the name of Kannakuchchiyar, 5
and he remarks: “It appears to have been a derisive term used for the
Malabar immigrants in Jaffna who had their hair tied in a knot on the side
of the head and who perhaps formed the majority of the population, by
the other Tamil and Sinhalese inhabitants who had their knots on the back
of the head.”
Commenting on the Manimagalam inscription of the Chola king
Rajadhiraja I where the term “Kannakuchchi” occurs, meaning the country
of Kannakuchchiyar, Rasanayagam says that Kannakuchchi does not re-
present Kanyakubja (Cape Comorin) but the country of the Malabarese of
Jaffna. The people having been called Kannakuchchiyar, the country
from which they migrated and the country in which they settled, were
called Kannakuchchi. The name is also found in another inscription of
Rajendra Chola. Kama from Karoo is the temporal region of the heal.
Kama Kudumbiyar is the more common term in Jaffna. Kudumhi or
kudumai is the hair-knot of men. The knot on the crown of the head or
more commonly on the right side is in contrast to the Tamil back-knot,
which prevails among the rural Sinhalese too. The side-knot of Jaffna
tells its own tale of unmistakable Malabar connections.
A distinctive item of Malabar jewellery is the toda or iodu, the car

5. Rasanayagam, C: Andtnt Jaffna, pp. 279, 280, 283.

 168

ornament worn by Jaffna ladies of a generation or two ago. A pair of

this specimen is among the Jaffna Tamil jewellery in the collections
of the Colombo National Museum (Text Figure 5). The custom of dis-
tending the ear lobes and of wearing the todu is a distinctly Malabar
fashion. proof of Kerala contacts.
Its prevalence in Jaffna is a clear

This been steadily going out of fashion in

particular type of jewellery has
modem Malabar, except among women of the older generation and of
.rural areas.

Fig-. 5. Jaffna Tamil Jewellery —the todu, an ear ornament.

Another significant ornament is the old-fashioned male ear-ring of

Malabar. Male children had their ears bored, and when they grew up
they wore a small golden ear-ring 3 a pair of kadukkan. This and the long
head of hair, knotted in a kudumai, have in Malabar yielded to modern
tastes. This sort of ear-ring, pandi kadukkan as it used to be known in
Malabar, possibly a result of Pandyan influence, may still be seen among
the villagers round about Nagercoil of Jaffna.
That Malabar customs generally ruled the social life of Jafifha is
also borne out by an examination of the marriage customs of Jaffna.
Marriage in Tesavalamai Code is designated sambandham and has a
significance of its own. Sambandham, so familiar a word in Jaffna for
marriage, is regarded as “the Tamil word for marriage”. But to a South
Indian Tamil the word for marriage is kalyanam. Under Tesavalamai
Code under the old Marumakkatayam custom of Malabar, samban-
as
dham was permissible with more than one woman, though the Malabar
custom permitted the first wife alone to live with her husband. A con-

6. Tambiah, H. W : The Laws and Customs of the Tamils of Jaffna —pp. 107-
108.
 m
«ubine, if any, lived
in her own house where the husband rated her.
Such
ljxity
Madras u. nm is today 2 thin® of the past. Under the
,
W
at .
ta '’ani
and the
^ ^ bigamy.
offender Act of ] 932, such alliances are illegal
is g

^
of today In this respect the Marumakkatayam Act
^ a°?aocc
011 the erstwhile status of woman under the
Hindu Law
arUma ^ ata
^am ^xm^iam °f
rew ®w^ ta Malabar is a union socially

pri^t
r * tes
^ ceremonies are of the essence of it. No
however
' TvmahNai Code too a priest is not essential,
much
sacramcmaJ °i
r anoi
'

*d marriage customs may have developed towards

nicaj custom*!^
amon® the Vellalas of Jaffna on the lines of Brahma-
in Jaffna.
Nw«thdess Brahmani
nrztmx cal rites are not
Tha k ^’ s
nambia .

Omam observations are pertinent: “Sometimes the

cerem
dro ped &ni the nea only performs the Pillayar
ceremony ana”?' ^. ? P
**” i$ *****
sidered
acd ven The tali ceremony is con- P -
import,
lace tali or
^ bere tbe parties arc too poor to afford a gold neck-

wirh the wash'

1'” t0
C *5ta* n ^ that the relation!,, along
SCTV1C£S of priest,

cloth is ^rT 1 and tbe barber, only attend the wedding. A piece of

Perforraed- Thcrc is ^ ev id
’
«*e
show that feJZ
°
is
Vellala families, a priest is never called
to

«remnn;« and marriage

PCrform
rnZT *** ^nhtdethemselves,”
"*
>’

°f persons, many marriage ceremonies

practised in Mr*** **** ^didabar 7
makes special
reference to rh
are the same”, Tambiah
sam^an<&la>r and The latter,
fast the talikettu kalyanam.
i,
disappear J1
Nevertheless th^
.Malabar, can scarcely be seen in Jaffna today,

the people
^ S*®nposts to a ^tute that pervaded the lives of
of JafBiaf

are
m”Tia^eable whether in Malabar or in Jaffna,
relations,
c o?^ cbhdren of a
sister. Marriage is forbidden
5
between brother and a
firs COa,aas’'~ci
fo dren of two brothers or two sisters.
,

Under
Tesewalttiutri
1 partners t0
brother’* ,
marriage “should not be related by blood except
marriage Thz ptohibition is here implied of
Thus man
marry ^ . .
relations except cross-cousins.
’
daughter, though under customs obtaining
*“* ter s
a cannot
among noJjw? !f
211 Tamils
•hibited L®
M
arriage between
in South India, such an alliance is not pro-
cross-cousins is not only allowed in Jaffna,

L Tambjgjj h w.t, _
*w i he Lotas
,
.
Customs of the Taarils oj Ceylon, p, IS.
 170

but it was and is the most favoured form and is even obligatory. Though
under the Marriage Registration Ordinance, marriage between the children
of two brothers or two sisters is not illegal now, the social taboo in Jaffna
is as strong as ever.
Matrimonial rights and inheritance in Jaffna follow Malabar law and
custom. Under TesavaJamai, if the wife dies intestate, her property does-
not revert to her father, but devolves on her children or sister’s children.
The husband is empowered to bestow the property of his wife on his
daughters as dowry; a "reflection of the powers which the Koranavan
it is

enjoys in a Marumakkattayam tarwad. In case the husband predeceases

her, the widow excerdses a similar power in regard to her share of the
husband’s property.”
In the routine of domestic life, there is much that is common between
Malabar and Jaffna. Look, for instance, at the cooking of rice. The
pot of rice boils with a surplus of water; the excess water is strained off
as the rice becomes well-boiled. It is unlike the South Indian Tamil
mode of cooking rice with just sufficient water to cook it in, no water
being left in the pot at the end of the process. In Malabar it is usual
to keep the water strained off the boiled rice as a drink accompanying the
rice and curry. Coconut and coconut oil enter very much in the pre-
paration of curries and savouries in both Malabar and Jaffna, in contrast
to the South Indian Tamil custom of using only gingilly oil in the seasoning

of curries. The taste of coconut oil in curries is abhorrent to the Tamil

palate. Another of the many common traits is the copious use of the coco-

nut, scraped and well-ground on the grinding stone, and made into a thick
paste which is gathered into a ball and freely mixed in the composition
Of all curries, meat, fish or vegetable.

In domestic architecture, we see the older structures conform to

the traditional Malabar plan of the nalupura or the “four-in-one” type,
with rooms disposed on dther side of an open quadrangle which is open
to the sky (Text Fig. 7). It represents also the general type of a
Kandyan valama. A typical house of this style is that of Kalai Pulaver
Sri N. Navaratnam at Vannarponnai, a house which is typically Kerala
also in its interior decor, with a number of objects of Malabar art,
the spouted water vessel, the kindi of Malabar and the ceremonial bronze
lamp, etc. •

Consider the man’s sartorial habits. The vetti is as a rule worn

round the waist in Jaffna in Malabar fashion and not in the Tamil,
 171

in which it is bifurcated, the trailing end being drawn between the

legs and secured at the back.
Kerala connections are also unmistakably indicated in the observance
of merne taboos and the purificatory ceremonial bath on the fourth day*
wearing the mafia, a strip of doth which the Vannathi, the washerwoman,
provides. Enquiries reveal that the mattu was a customary wear on the

occasion, used by high-caste women of Jaffna even a decade or two ago

and is still observed in orthodox families. A Malay alam word, mattu re-
callsthe old Malabar custom of the ceremonial observance of the menstrual
pollution, a custom now tending to deseutude, though still prevailing
among the lower social groups of Jaffna, such as the Palter, Nalaver and
 172

Parayer etc., who are served by their own washerman, the turumber.
In the word turumber for washerman, we may see still another Malayalam
link, for it is derived from the Malayalam word tirumbuka , to wash.

The Tamil term for washing is velukarutu , from vellai, white.

In the vocabulary of conversation among ordinary people will

be found words and phrases which are the same in Jaffna Tamil
several
as in Malayalam. It is so obvious that it forces itself on the attention of
any one acquainted with both the languages. I tried to compile a list

which, however, grew too long to be included in an Appendix. Specially

the terms of endearment used in Jaffna in calling children Kunju,
Kutti and Mane are of Malabar language and usage.
 APPENDIX I

THE TERMS ELU, ILAM AND ILLANGAMA

1

There has been a good deal of discussion regarding the meanings of

the terms, Eh, Bam and IBangeam » leading sometimes to a controversy.
Without going into detail, I wish to present here the general agreement in
regard to the meanings of these terms which relate to the Sinhalese langu-
age.
Elu the earliest farm of Sinhalese, the chaste and pristine form,
is

Atrmmt (unmixed) Sinhala , as distinguished from the Mirra ('mixed)

SinhaJa of the present day, mixed with Pali or Sanskrit and abounding
with words and phrases directly derived from these classical language',.
According to James De Alwis and others, “the term Elu is derived from
Sinhala which, mutated into Shrink, Sila, Selu and Helu, produced Elu.”
Sihala is the Pali form of Sanskrit Sinhala, and Sikala gives us Sihala and
Hala, and Ha being elided, gives Elu. According to this derivation, the
language his taken its mane from the land, rather than the land from the
language. The latter process defines the order of derivation in terms of
“Elu, Helu, Sinhala, Sihala, Sihala and Sinhala .” 1
A related problem is the word Ham, the andent Tamil name for
Ceylon. Caldwell , 3 the grammarian, considers it to be a word corrupted

from the Sanskrit Simhalam, or rather from the Pali Sihalam by the
omission of the initial ‘S’. Dr. Gundert , 4 the grammarian and lexico-
grapher, is more or less of the same opinion, defining the word as the
u
tadbkavam" (mutation) of Pali Sinhal, Sinhala,” also to be a form of
SiUrn, the Pali form of Sinhala (ekeipa ), Tamil having no proper sibilant.
The accepted conclusion is that Ilam is the old name of the Maud in
Tamil. The name occurs in the term Illamre, on the basis of which, as
it has been observed that "all the varieties of the spelling represent the
Tamil name llan-nadu namely, Ceylon."

1. James De Alwis : On the “Elu Language ; Its Poetry and Its Poets",
J.R-A.S. (C.A.). VoL II, No, 5, 1850.
2. Brito : Yalpana Vaipava Malai : Appendix, Navamn&m, C.S. .* Tamls 3)
Ceylon, 1959, p. 44.
3. Caldwell Camparatvit Grammar of the Draaidim Language.!, 1913, p. 109.
:

4. Gundert : Malstyalam gad English Dictionary, p. 462.

173
 174

A different term altogether is Illangama, often confused with

Illanka, the Tamil variant of Lanka. 5 As signifiying an institution fot
training in the arts of fencing, dancing and singing, the term had a good
deal of currency in the Middle Ages. As a general term for an institution
of culture, three principal kinds of Illangama have been traced; 6 —Suda-
Hye and Manmaliye or schools of fencing; Netum or schools of dancing,
and Wahala or schools of the art of jugglery and magic. This Illangama
has nothing to do with Ilam.

5. Burnell : Hobson-Jobsan, Ceylon. Fergusson, Donald : J.R.A.S. (C.B.),

^
Vol. XX, No. 60, 1908.
6. Codrington, H. W Glossary of Native, Foreign and Anglicised Words, 1924.
:

My esteemed friend, Raia Raja Varma Raja of Travancore seems to have

struck upon the right solution of the derivation of the term. He tells us
(p. 181, Selected Essays , 1940) that “in some places the Kalari is called
Ilangam . He derives it from rangam, a Sanskrit word. Rangam may easily
have taken the form irangam in Tamil in ordinary speech and ultimately
mutated into ilangam in the course of years. It is no doubt a Tamil word
in that form. The occurrence of the word in Travancore is obviously Cey-
lonese influence.
 ,

APPENDIX II

MALALA KATHAVA—THE STORY OF THE SEVEN

MALABAR PRINCES
There is a number of folk stories in Ceylon, which possesses a wealth
of folk literature, throwing light on migration'- of people from Malabar to
Ceylon. Among these is the Mdda Katkova 1
, the story of the Seven
Malabar Princes. The story is contained in an interesting manuscript.
Has we come across the term Maldo, a Sinhalese form of Mdayah,
Associated with the Malah Princes in the story we the 'T.mikfof*.
Expressions like “the noble Panikki” and “Parukarala" are used m the
narrative which are Sinhalese counterparts of the MakyaJan word Fmikker
aname with a good deal more of respectability about it in Malabar, than
the name Panikki in modem Ceylon,1
Here also we have the specific mention of the Tamils, distinguishing
them from the Malalas. This dissolves the confusion which prevailed in
the medieval days when Malabar was largely used to mean Tamiltnd,
“
In the narrative the Tamils are in one champcm In another
are the Otettiars, specifically mentioned as such, possibly to denote
the large group that the Chetriars formed in the hosts of immigrants.
Embarking at Bodhi Manda Vihara, the party reached “Myiapuri” and
“Aiyotti Pattalam”.“Myiapuri” is obviously the modem “Mylaporc”
a residential quarter of the city of Madras. The course of the journey
was down the South East Coast.

1. The translation of Molds Ktahmta here given is from cme of the manus-
cripts in the collection of the Colombo National Museum Library. It it
the first translation into English.

2, la Ceylon, as in Kerala, the term to been traditionally applied to denote

skill,particularly technical skill, as in the art of training and controlling
elephants. Those learned m
the elephant lore iti Ceylon are called by this
name.
In the Kandyan country, the title is attached to the personal names
of the Ntkad or the Beraoaya, professionally skilled in drumming, dancing,
astrology and the occult arts. Elsewhere in Ceylon it is generally applied
to the Ambettaya, the barber community. This presumably is a heritage
of the distant days when the Ambeturya, in both Ceylon end India, was
reputed for bis learning in the occult arts for which he stiE enjoys a name
in many parts of rural India, as in present-day Malabar.

175
 176

In footnote 7 under Chapter 37-215 of the Culavamsa, Bodhimanda

is described as “the place of Enlightenment,” the spot in Bodh Gaya

where the Buddha attained enlightenment, Culavamsa tells us also of a

-vihara at the place, The Bodhimanda Vihara of the story may be this
identical vihara. The reference to boats touching at Mylapore points to
the location of the Vihara to the north of the coast, and the course of the
journey maybe visualised as along the South Eastern coastal route by sea
to Ceylon.
The reason for the Malala princes embarking on the expedition
from the East Coast far from their Malabar homeland is none too clear.

The routes of migrations from South India to medieval Ceylon are a subject
which largely remains obscure. This narrative, however, gives us a
glimpse of the character of the early emigrations from Malabar. The
Malayalee has been one of the most adventurous and enterprising of the
medieval peoples of South India. The incident of the seven “Malalu”
“lodging in tie premises of the Vihara” seems to show that they were
recent arrivals, —probably Buddhist pilgrims. That they were devoted
to arms is also dear from many allusions, e.g., they decided to go to
Sinhala as "it was impossible to indulge in the art of war without paying
tribute/' To the Malayali trained in the art of war it was of the utmost
importance to keep himself by daily and regular practice of methods of
fit

physical culture which in those martial days were invariably carried on

with deadly weapons. That on landing in Sinhala, each of them had a
sword in the right hand and a shield in the left leaves us in no doubt
of their soldierly profession.
Other versions of the story, are given in other Sinhalese manuscripts,

the and the Kadayampot. These refer to “a number of Malala

Vittipat
(Malabar) princes who were defeated by the Maravara.” “They came
with valuable presents to the king of Ceylon and sought refuge there.”
All this indicates that thdr presence on the East Coast may have been just
the chance of a mercenary career.
In the unsettled state of Malabar, following the break-up of the
Chcra Kingdom (about the 10th century), numbers of the fighting per-
sonnel of the land turned their gaze on their more powerful neigh-
bours, the Chola and the Pandya, and found service in the rank and file
of thdr armies, warring against each other and launching expeditions
against Ceylon. It may be mentioned that, besides the sea route in the
East, there were outlets by land, of which the two prominent were the —
 177

one through the Palghat gap, a broad break in the Western Ghats and
the other southwards across the foot-hills of Southern Travancore and
plains beyond.
The foregathering of peoples arriving in Ceylon over ages past is
the theme of the folk chronicles, the Vittipot and the Kadayampst. A
study of the main features of these chronicles by the Hon. W. A. I>e Silva
appeared inJfJUtJl. (C), Vol. XXX, No. 80, 1927.
The main theme of the Malala Kaihaza finds brief mention in the
latter chronirie: “During the reign of King Bhuvanekatmhu of
Dambadeniya and Sitawaka, the date of whose reign is given as 1532 Saka
(1590 A. D.), a number of princes from Mstkk (Makbar) who were
defeated by the Maravan, 8 came with valuable presents to the King of
Ceylon and sought refuge here. They and their followers were given the
country near Pomparippu and the Vanni where they settled down.”
The composition of the Malala Kathava is ascribed on literary
grounds to the 16th century, and the specific mention of King Bhuveneka
Bahu,4 would strongly dispose us to relate the incidents narrated to the
Kotte period of Ceylonese history and more precisely to the days of Kir®
Bhuvaneka Bahu VII of Kotte (1509 A.D.).
The Ms. —
(0 6) entitled the Vitti pert, containing the story of
the Malala in the collection of the Colombo Museum Library, seems to
be identical with the Vanni Vittiya which forms part of the work cm
“Division boundaries and Incidents of the Tri Sinhak,” edited by
A. J. W. Marambc, 1926. Marambe’s Vanni Vittiya and the Museum
Ms. dealing with the story of the Malak embody a wealth of information
relating to the landing of Malak princes and Panikker chiefs, their exploits,
and the land-grants made to them by Ceylonese Kings.
Side by side with the mixed classical style of the narrative, there are
colloquial words and disconnected passages, occasionally serving to
obscure the meaning.

3. This happened probably in one of the many encounters between warring

elements in the unsettled medieval days of South India.
4. We cannot be very .positive which particular King is meant by “King Bhu-
vaneka Bahu”. If the King referred to is King Bhuveneka Bahu ol Dam-
badeniya, his period is 1271-1283. This is too early a period for the move-
ment of the Malala Princes as described in the story. If as is probable, one
—
of the Kotte Kings is meant the King can !>e either Bhuveneka Bahu
VI (1472-1480) or Bhuvaneka Bahu VII (1509- 1521) either of whom may
be the reigning monarch of the time. Of the two, the latter is more
probable.
 178

Below are reproduced the adventures and incidents of the Malala

princes and Panikker chiefs as set forth in the Manuscript:
"After the famine (?), the Tamils went to their country,.
Thereafter king Bhuvaneka Bahu became king of “Sinhala Dipa.” The
seven ‘Malalu’ of the Mallava country lodged in the premises of the
Vihara. In that country there was a hostile king. As it was impossible
to indulge in the art of war without paying tribute, they decided to go to
the ‘Sinhala’ country first.

"The ‘Mallu’ bom unto the king Malala were like petals of flowers
•on a young tree. Whenwas slightly shaken, they fell and with-
that tree
ered, Thereupon the seven (princes) went to their mother and sought
permission from her. Having obtained permission and constructed the
ships, they started on their voyage to the land of ‘Sinhala.’
"O friend, listen unto a mishap that occurred when a fierce storm
blew ceaselessly. Sweet darling, half of the gold had been offered to the
gods, yet it was impossible to stay in the champan (boat).

“Having heard this, the ‘Malalas’ declared that they should stay in
the ship without fear and that in the event of death without getting an
opportunity to land, they all should be reborn in one city.

"They embarked Manda Vihara and ultimately reached

at Bodhi
Mylapuri and Aiyotti Pattalam. The champan of the ‘Malalas’ reached
Mutupantiya and that of the Tamils Kudara Male. The Tamils settled
down in Velparappu. The champan of the Chcttiars reached Anambalam
and they came and settled down in Mutupantiya. The three parties
started to fire, and when the Sinha (Sinhalas) roared like lions, they
5
began to spread gold while indulging in sham fights (Nirohiyata). The
Veddas thereupon began to collect the gold.
"The Malalas invited the Veddas to come to them, and in endearing
speech asked the way. The Tamils asked what that speech actually

3. Spelt also “Nirogi”, though the more correct spelling seems to be

“nirohi”. In the midst of the Internal dissensions culminating in the
death of King Vijsya Bahu of Kotte (1518), "the army”, it is said, "played
the game of Nirogi and the people who collected to witness the same were
let into the plot to kill the king.” Paul E. Pleris; Ceylon : “The
Portuguese Era , 1913, Vol. I, p. 62. Nirohi is obviously one of the many
martial plays of old, of which there are a good many in Travancore where
it used to serve the purpose of maintaining the fighting mettle. The
Sinhalese army personnel appears to have beat indulging in a mock fight
during moments of relaxation in the field of battle. Such mock fights
are part of the recreational plays of the villages of Kerala, exciting much
rivalry and competitive spirit.
 179

meant. The noble Panikki then explained:

“O noble Panikki, may you describe the road. Know you that we
have brought jewels. Tribute and presents having been offered, the
Veddas got together and conversed.
“It was said that he would meet the Sinhala king after having wor-
shipped at the temple. Having disclosed further information in respect
of the visit, noble Panikki embarked on his journey.

“Armed with tribute and presents and having gathered together the
hosts of Veddm, he went before the king and obtained permission from the
king after having paid him homage.
“Why is the Vedda in a suppliant attitude? Panikki Vedda says
whereupon king Buweneka Ba issued orders.
that the Matalas have landed,
“When asked whether they were friends or foes, it was said that
they had come with presents and tribute. The Aialbwa princes were
asked to furnish further information regarding them (the new-comm).
“They have neither a place to go nor food to eat. Permission is

required to feed them. Each of them bears a sword on the right-shoulder

and a shield in the left hand. Seven of them declare that they are friends.
Therefore the king issues orders.
“The Minister of Transport was invited and asked to listen to the
we would make. The noble Panikki was ordered to go.
statements The
Veddas came and made enquiries.
“Having reached the devale at Munnessaram, they took shelter
there, and obtained permission from God Vishnu. The Maklas asked
how a vim 6 should be performed.
“Gold and silver, pearls and jewels were offered. Such were the
virtues that spread over the whole world. Having offered a golden chair,
a strip of land was received in return, and the Ramcariya was summoned.
“The Ranacariya7 was called and. was given unto him
after it was measured with the mma (two chtndns) and the kurrni (sixteen
chundm). The ‘Makla’ princes went before the king and handed over to
him a cat made of gold.
“The Malalas offered the chair of gold and received the title of Raja
Guru Mudiyanse. The Mala la princes presented the cat and received
the title of Malala Bandara, They satled down in Siyane Korale.

6. Vina, like kadi kumyam are magical rites performed by practitioners o£

black magic to inflict suffering.
7. Goldsmith.
 180

Iriyawa Panikki Rala presented an elephant and received the title of Sinha
Prxtapa Mudiyanse.
“When the king declared that he who showed his skill by shooting
two arrows a prancing steed would be gifted with a pair of tusks con-
at

taining elephant pearls, all those assembled expressed, their inability to

do so. Prince Malala frugal, thereupon, said that he would be able to
perform the feat. His Majesty Buweneka Bahu offered his
illustrious

golden bow. While the steed jumped lo the sky, two arrows were shot.
Many were the favours bestowed on the winner. He was given the title

of Malala Irugal Bandara, and the three villages, called Dolaha Bammu,
together with
all the tanks and sluices thereto belonging and all the fields

and paddy lands below. Halpaymala and above the Ranakotapugala (the
rock on which was carved a rope), were granted on a sarmasa.
"When prince Malala appeared before the king, the title of Sinha
Raja Guru Mudiyanse was conferred on him and lands were granted to
him from Siyaae Kocale, Udugampola, Kirawella, Mahara, Kandane,
Wattala, Kdaniya, Nogoda, Bam pane, Yatihena and Madulupitiya.
"His most Illustrious Majesty Buweneka Bahu, the Sinhalese king
appointed him to the office ofDissam Adikarama and a sarmasa (writ)
was granted to him, freeing him from the taxes of Madihan, Hanpali,
Marala (death duties), Bim Pulutu (cremation duties), Kadappu, Tirappu
and the Rajakariya relating to the supply of elephant tusks. The copper
sarmasa was given in order that the grant may be enjoyed as long as the
swn and moon shall last. The tfutras (elders) Buddhamitra and Saranam-
kara dad in their silken robes, who came from the Vihara in the country
of Malala brought a twig of the sacred Bo-tree and lived here like Tota-
gteauwa and Vidagama (Two Primates of the Buddhist Church who
flourished in the days of Parakrama Bahu VI of Kotte A.D. 1415 —
67). —
"Eriyawe Panikki Rala of the Vedda dan was given 40 soldiers. Gale
Wewe P.R. 22, Dumipotagama P.R. 12, Wekunawe Sinhanada P.R. 12,
WEavra Jaga Sinha P.R. 10, and Waragammana Wanni Adlpattu Patir-
annahe 20 soldiers. The P.R, who saw the ‘Irugal’ boat at Hulugalla
was given 32 soldiers. (Hatigammana Wanaraja P.RR. was given 18
soldiers and Wendakaduwe Vanaraja P.R. 22). Magalle Oluponkuac
Sundara P.R. was given seven noosing ropes, Dunukeiya WeppuHa
Watraiya five cudgels, Eriyawe P.R. was made the chief of the Vedda*
uf these foot Vannis, Nikapitiye Goma Liyana Vedda was made the
Secretary to that P. R. , .
 )

Nanambara Kalinga Aiyotthi Parakrama Bahu (A.D. 1250-

“Vijava
down noosers to seize elephants and sent them to the four
1285) brought
Vastnk. The elephants at Sitawaka came and joined their herd at
Kaburupitiya. The four Vannis of the four Pattu called the Panifckers
and went to mast the herd. Having discussed matters with the mahouts,
they crossed the Deduru Oya and encamped at Magalla, Mahagalgamuwa
and Medianoniwa in succession. When from there they went past
Mahanegaasole, they came across the wild elephant. Labunoruwe
Panikkiya enticed the elephant with the help of a cow elephant and having
noosed him, he set the oow to pull him.
“Having started from there;, he reached Kahalle Devale, and, on

offerings being made to the God, an anklet ( salamba was given by the
God to the mahout with instructions to adorn the elephant with it before
riding. The mahout then began to ride the elephant. Thereafter he
encamped successively at Kalugalla, Mundakondapola, Dambadeniya
and Sitawaka. King Parakrama Bahu* then came to the Pattirippuwa
(royal dais) and he having removed the ropes with which the elephants
were tethered, an army of elephants and men was made to keep watch over
the animals. The four Commanders-in-chief of the Vanni were ordered
ft) tie the legs of the elephant. A
Malala prince tied the front leg and
having paid obeisance to the king stood aside. He was given the tide of
Eriyawe Vanni Nayake Mudiyanse. The second Malala Bandara sallied
forth and tied the rear leg in the midst of the herd of elephants,
and,
having done so, paid obeisance to the king and stood aside. The tides
of Ratna Mallawa Irugal Bandara Mudiyanse and of Uduweriye Panan-
hanthi Hctti Bandara were conferred upon him. Tri Sinhala Kirti
Rajapaksa, a Malala of the Putfalama (sea-port town), having sallied
forth
towards the army of horses and elephants, tethered the
elephant to the
He was given the tide of Tri Rajagum Mudiyanse.
tree fearlessly.
King Parakrama Bahu (1415-1467), having observed that the Alalalas
were sporting with the elephant after having noosed him,
presented them
gifts (mmkkattu to reward their skill. The four Pattu of the Vanni were
)
granted on a gold plate. (From that lime onwards these four
Pattu were
.freed from the taxes of Kadappuli and Tirappuli
(presentation of elephant
tusks and exemption, from death duties).”

Vita Fsraknuca Bahu VI of Kotte, (1487-1507).

sh ets of manuscript give a meticulous list of
riie
,
^ L
etc> bestowed oa the Malala
Erin
irnnceSi From considerations of space, I have omitted these lists.
 ,

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Zocte, Beryl De : The Other Mind, London, 1953.

; Dance and Magic Drama in

Ceylon, London, 1957.
 INDEX

ABHAYAGIRI DAGOBA 35, 93 Andhra 76, 77, 81, 140

Abhayanaga 35 Andhra art 92, 99
Abhinaya 117, 125 Andhra influences 160
Abhishcka 49 Angam 124, 130, 133, 135, 136, 137,
Abhivadana 67 138, 139
Abo-sala-mevan 82 Angamana 136
Achchi 141 Angampora 136
Adam’s Peak 18, 29, 63, 64 Andriesz, Geotge 135
Adichanallur 33 An-keliya 136,163
Aeolian musical instruments 2 Anoma 126
Agathemerus 146 Anthropological Surveys 60
Agbo 41 Anuradhapura 11, 12, 14, 16, 18, 32,
Aggabodhi 46 35, 36, 37, 41, 57, 58, 72, 76, 78,
Agraharam 27 81, 89, 90, 91, 93, 95, 97, 103,
Aharya 117 104
Aiyanar 62, 64, 97, 129 Apsaras 100
Ajanta 41, 99, 101 Arabs 18, 19
Ajanta frescoes 10, 12, 41 Arahant them 70
Akampadiyar 53 Architecture in Ceylon 58, 88, 103
Alagiyavanna Mahottala 85 Aromer Chckavar 134, 135, 139
Alarippu 117 Aryans 9, 127
Alphabet in Ceylon 40 Arya dynasty 47
Alutnuwara Katragama devale 120, Asadissa Vannama 126
121, 122 Asela 16
Alut avumddu devatava 158 Asoka 14, 15, 16, 39, 40, 70, 71, 73,
Alwis, James De 173 92
Amaravati 36, 77, 88, 100 Asoka Chakra 73
Amaravati stupa 89 Asokan period of Ceylon history 34
Amaravati style of Buddha image 93 Asokan pillars 91
Ambastala 77 Asokarama 71
Ambagamuwa Rock Inscription 29 Asokavana 3
Ambettaya 138, 175 Astrologer 161
Amitabha 96 Attakathas 7, 80
Aroma 150 Attaaagallu monastery 29, 35
Amme 150 Avalokatiswara Padmapani 96
Ammisra Sinhala 173 Avukana Buddha 93
Amulets 161 Avuruddu Karthiga 121
 2

B
BADDAKACCANA 14 Birth rites 48
Badulla Buddha 95 Bodh Gaya 176
Bailey, John 110 Bodhisattvas 95
Baiakrishna, bronze figure 98 Bodhisattva Avalokatisvara 94
Balendra, W 102 Bodhisattva Vajrapani 96
Bali 37, 164, 165 Bond of Buddhism 69
Balibhojaka 23 Boodha Tandavam 127
Bamba world 63 Bovatcagala 38
Bambara 2 Bowers, Faubian 124
Bamba ra Undllava 158 Brahma 4
Bamunu 28 Brahmanavatta 27
Bamunugama 27 Brahmi Inscriptions 80
Bondi Valalu 150 Brahmi script 80
Barbosa 142 Brahmin 16, 19, 24, 25, 26, 27, 48,
Barnett, L. D. 87 49, 59
Bacticaloa 96 Brahmin societies 144
Bay of Koddiyar 67 Brazen palace 35
Bed of Mahinda 72 Britto, C 38
Bell, H.C.P. 134 Bronzes 17, 95, 97, 98, 99, 101
Bellalas 56, 57 Bronzes, South Indian 91
Beravaya 164, 175 Bronze statuettes of Danseuse 112, 113
Beruwala 18 Buddha 62, 63, 64, 67, 69, 70, 71, 72,
Bhajanam 119 82, 119
Bharata Natya 110, 111, 112, 113, Buddha image 92, 93
116, 117, 127 Buddhadatta 78, 81
Bharata Natya Sastra 84, 107, 114, Buddhaghosa 41, 78, 80, 82
115, 116 Buddha Jayanti 74, 75
Bharata Natya dancer of S. India 112 Buddhapalita 81
Bharhut 36, 89, 92, 97 Buddhaputta 82
Bharukacha 15 Buddha stotras 119, 120
Bhaaa 48 Buddhism 11, 15,30, 36,49,56, 61,
Bhikunnis 78 62, 69, 70
Bhujanga Tandavam 127 Buddhist Mythology 97
Bhuridatta Jataka 125 Buddhism among the Tamils 61, 78,79
Bhuvenakabahu of Dambadeniya 177 Buddhist art of Central India 36, 89
Bhuvenakabahu 1 64, 110 Buddhist Councils 70
Bhuvenakabahu VI and VII 177 Buddhist doctrine 37, 83
Birma 143 Bulath urula 156

c
CALDWELL, BISHOP 173 Carnatic Music 118
Cambay 145 Cassia leaves 129
Gandanagama 14 Casie Chetti, Simon 148
 3

Caste groups 23, 24 Cochi Malayalam 45

Caste System 24, 25, 30 Cochiyan 141
Cave, H. W. 106 Codrington, H. W, 10, 110, 174
Caves 26, 77 Cokam 107
Cetiyakas 77 Colombo Chetti 20, 21
Cetiya prasadas 8 Colombo Plan Exhibition 121
Ceylon Daily News 92, 94, 99 Colombo National Museum 19, 58, 95,
Ceylon Tamils 22, 50 96, 97, 110, 112, 152
Ceylon Today 32, 75, 94 Colonial days 31
Chakravarty, B. N. 75 Colonists 21, 52, 54
Chalukyan princes 19 Coomaraswamy, Ananda 30, 58, 95, 97,
Chandalas 28, 29 128, 150
Chandikeswara 98 Commentaries on the Nikkayas 77,
Chandrabanu 20 83
Chandrasekhara 102 Constitution of the Kandyan Kingdom
Chekon 138 24
Chera 38, 39, 42, 44, 140, 176 Cordiner 31
Chettiars 175, 178 Coromandel coast 19
Chidambaram Hindu Temple 117 Cosmic dance of Siva 112, 127
Cbidanam 166, 167 Costume of the Ves dancer 123
Chilau 28, 60, 66 Court life in Ceylon 46-49
Chola 17, 39, 51, 52, 55, 58, 140, 168, Craftsmen 14, 88
176 Cranganore 142
Chola architecture 104 Cross-cousins 170
Chola occupation of Polonnaruwa 58 Crown of Cassia leaves 129
Chola type of bronzes 102 Cult of the Gods 62-68, 164
Churika 138 Cult of the Spirits 62, 164
Cilappadikaram 35, 76, 107, 127, 130 Culture of the Court 46-49
Cittaraja 12 Cunningham, Sir Alexander 73
Closset, Rev. Father T. C. 85 Chaturmaharajadeva 97
Coastal route 16 Chaturmaharajana 97
Cochin 141, 142 Cymbals 113
Cochikade 141 Cyngilin and its variants 142

DALAD A 83 Dance and music in Ceylon 48, 61,

Dalada Maligawa 66, 73, 122 108, 118, 120
Dambana Veddahs 65 Dances and Dancing girls 110, 111,
Dambadeniya period 82 112, 113-117, 121
Damaru 129 Dance Sculptures 109, 110, 111
Dambulla 104 Dancing goddess on Ivory combs 111,
Damila 16, 34 112
Danasalas 69 Dathopatissa II. 39, 41
Danavas 5 Davy, J. 28, 135
Decorative folk arts 101 Diga Nikaya 70
Deraniyagala, P. E. P. 1, 2, 13, 32, 88* Digge 121
97, 101, 112, 138 Digge Netuma 84
De Silva, C. M. Austin 83, 148, 151 Dikshitar V. R. R. 107
De Silva, W. A. 177 Dimbulagala frescoes 101
Desi 107 Dinaur 120
Dcva angam Cloths 133 Dipavamsa 9, 72, 80
Devadasis 68, 84, 116, 117 Dissava 134, 180
Deval perahera 121 Dividos 63
Devalaya 66, 163 Doladukka 129
Devala dances 119, 120, 121 Dondra 63, 120, 122
Devanampiyya Tissa 15, 16, 34, 36, 62, D’Oyly 24
71, 72, 76, 77 Dravidians 11, 55, 56, 58
Devendra, D. T. 92 Dravidian architecture 88, 103, 104
Devundura devalaya 63 Dravidian languages 55, 59, 60, 85-87
Devinuwara 120 Drums 108, 113
De Zoysa Rajakaruna 19 Drummers 30
Dhamma 68, 69, 70 Dukali 136
Dhanunadinna Vimala Kitti 84 Dunumal Akkama 126
Dhammakitti 78 Dutch 21, 22
Dhamma Kitti, Maha Thera of Dutch Burghers 22
Gadaladeniya 83 Dutch Reformed Church 61
Dhamma Sanjayana 70 Durawa 23
Dhamma chakra 92 Duttagamini 16, 107, 116
Dharmaseaa Sthavira 83 Duttugemunu 34, 35, 37, 65
Dhatusena 41 Dwarfs in Sculptures 91
Dhrutarastra 97 Dynasty of the Moon 46

E
ELARA 16, 34, 65 Embekke devalaya wood carvings
Elephant Lamp
112 111
Elephant Sculptures 91 Esala 66, 129
Elephant Vahana 64 Esalha 49
Elephants 181 Evil eye 164
Elu 173 Exhibition of Holy Relics in
Blliot, Brooke 88 New Delhi 74

FA-HIBN 16, 41 Feudal days 24

Fandarina 142 Fish 39
Fashions in Dress 145, 171 Fish emblem 39
Ferguson, Donald 174 Flandarina 142
Fernando, P. E. E, 94 Folk arts 130, 137
Feudal Constitution 24, 30 Folk cults 62, 160, 161, 162
 5

Folk chronicles 97 Four great Wansas 24

Folk dances 129 Fraternal Polyandry 145
Folk literature 51 Frescoes 41
Folk religion 162 Fresco art of Ceylon 99, 100
Folk songs 81, 132 Fresco art of Polonnaruwas 101
Folk ways 152 Functional Groups 30

GADALADENIYA 58, 105 Goonaratne F. E. Mohotti Mudaliyar

Gajabahu 34, 35, 47, 65, 108, 116 134
Gajaba Kathava 35, 85 Gopalu Yakka 164
Gajaga Vannam 125 Gottabhaya 35
Gal-Vihara Rock cut Sculptures 94, Grammar of the Kandyan Law 24
95 Grandham 152, 155
Gatle 6, 18 Griffiths, John 10
Gam madu 163 Griha Samhita 7
Gamini 27 Guard Stones 91
Gandharvas 5 Guardian deity 62
Ganesh 4, 98 Guardian gods 97
Ganesh Vannama 125 Gunavardhana Mudaliyar 85, 86, 87
Garden Sports 49 Gundert, Rev. J. 173
Garuda 129 Guptas 40, 41
Gautama 10 Gupta art 40, 41, 90, 95, 96, 103
Qe Name 143 Guru 26
Genu denu 157 Guru Gods 126
Qira Sandesa 26, 60 Guruge, Ananda W.P. 7
Girikandi Cetlya 39 Guruge Malaya 126
Godakumbura, C. E. 114 Gurulugomi 82
God Gana 114 Guttaka 16
Goigama 23, 24 Guttila Kavya 27, 84

H
HAIR-DO 148, 168 Hetti 28
Hakgalla gardens 2 Hettiarachi 28
Hala 173 Hewakam 139
Hamsa Sandesa 84, 1 13 Hewaralas 130
Hari-Hara-putra 64 Hewaya masks 137
Haramba Salava of Kandy 137 High Gods of the Hindu Pantheon 62
Harsha 41 Hill, Osman 13
Hasta 124, 125 Hindagala frescoes 101
Hayley, F. A. 31,145 Hindu four-fold varnas 25, 30
Hela 173 Hindu influence 44, 48, 49, 56
Helu 173 Hindu Law 166, 168
Hemamali 73 Hindu temple of Rameswaram 43
 6

Hinduism 56 Hoo Call 153, 157

History of the Sacred Tooth Relic 83 Hoapad 153
Hitopadesa 85 Hoovak pramana dura 153
Homa rites170 Horoscope 161
Homeland of the Ceylon Tamils 50 Horse Vahana of Aiyanar 64
Homeland of Pali literature 80

IBN-BATUTA 18, 120 Indian affinities of Sigiriya art 99

Idayar 54 Indian artists from the Andhra
Ilam 7, 45, 173 country 101
Hanadu 7, 173 Indian Classical music 108, 109
Ha Naga 36 Indian images of the Buddha 92, 93
Ilanara 7 Indian Tamils 22, 51
Iianga madu 133 Indo-Aryan Group of Languages 80
IUangama 174 Issurumuniya temple 57, 90, 91, 104
Ilmaha Karthigai 121 Iswarams 67
Ilubharata 51 Iswara Vannama 126
Immigrants 9, 17, 18, 24, 51, 55 Ivory combs, carvings of
Inams 100 dancing goddess 111, 112
Incantation of the hog 126

J
JAFFNA 21, 50, 51, 53, 54, 55, 64, 65 Jetavana dagoba 89
Jagaraja Sekera 51 Jetavanarama 35
Jambudipa 33, 47, 48 Jettha Tissa 92
J at aka tales 12, 15, 119, 125 Jewellery 100, 149, 150, 169
Jad 30 Jivama 162
Java 27 Journal, A. S. B. 21
Jayanti celebrations 75

KACHCHA 145 Kalasoka 70

Kadavara devata 65 Kalidas 41, 81, 83
Kadu haramba, sword and Kalinga 10, 39, 43, 46, 55, 72
shield play 131 KalingsWar 70
Kadukkan 169 Kalingam 45
Kahala 113 Kalvettu 51, 97
Kallas 5, 45 Kalyanam 144
Kaitalam 19 Kcmda upatha 65
Kakkavanna Thu 7 Kandy 121
Kalabera 113 Kandy and Kerala Relations 124
Kalagedi Netuma 122, 130, 158 Kandy National Museum 152
Kalari of Kerala 135, 137, 139 Kandy Perahera 65, 66, 122
 7

Kandyan architecture 105, 106 Kirin da 37

Kandyan Constitution 30 Kirti 42
Kandyan Convention 22 Kirti Sri Raja Sinha 133
Kandyan Dances 121, 122 Kitti Siri Megha 46
Kandyan Dance and Kathakali 123, 124 Kitti Siri Mevan 72
Kandyan Kings 118, 133 Knox, Robert 147
Kandyan Kingdom 45 Koddiyar Bay 67
Kandyan marriage in Binna 143 Kodungallur 142
Kani 155 Kohambana Cave frescoes 99
Kanharya 127 Kohomba Kamkarya 123, 126
Kannaki 35, 66 Kolam 129
Kannakkuchiyar 149, 168 Kolam masks 129
Kannata troops 42 Kolam tullal 129
Kantaka Cetiya 36, 89 Roller 53
Kap inauguration 129 Komatti 53
Kappuralas 164 Konde 147, 148
Karava 20. 24 Koneswar Kovil 66, 101, 104
Kasi mala 149 Kopalar 54
Kasinada guru 126 Kotte 20, 26, 141, 177, 178
Kasypa 42 Kottelavala, Rt. Hon’ble Sir John 74
Kathakali dancer’s costume 123 Kovalam 54
Kathakali Tandava 123, 124 Kovalan 163
Kathiramalai 38 Koviar 53
Kattadiyas 164 Kovinder 54
Kattnragama 64, 65 Kshatriaya 24, 27, 37, 38, 49, 53, 58, 70
Kausambi 16 Kuda Guru 126
Kaveripattinam 15, 76, 82 Kuda hetti 28
Kavsilumna 49, 82, 108 Kudumai 168
Kavyas 63, 117 Kukkuda Vanaama 125
Kavya Sekera 84 Kulakkodan 52
Keerimalai 16, 51 Kulinga 23
Kelani dagoba 36, 64 Kumaradasa 81
Kelaniya 6, 72, 73, 122 Kumarihami 133
Kevun 155, 157 Kumbakarna 4, 5
Khudda sevakas 138 Kumbal perahera 120
Kindi 144, 150, 171 Kuraver 14
Kinduru maidens 116 Kurinchi 53
King’s Bath, Anuradhapura 91 Kuruppu 141
Kirmaraya 14 Kutumbiyangana 16
Kinnaris 110 Kuveni 10, 11, 16, 12, 128
Kiri bath 156..157 Kuvera. 4

L
LADA 10, 11, 38, 69 Lakshmi 98
Lakshmana 64 Lala 10
 8

Lama sariya 146 Logan, W. 143

Lanja Tissa 36 Lohapasada 35
Lanka X, 4, 6, 8, 11, 12, 23, 38, 47, 48, Lokapalas 4
51, 65, 69, 126 Lokapalakas 97
Lankapura 11, 12 Lokkuhetti 28
Lankatilaka temple, Kandy 58, 105 Loris 13
Lankatilaka (Headless Figure, Polon- Lotus petal mouldings 91
naruwa) 94 Lovers, Sculpture, Anaradhapura 90
Lankavatara Sutra 7 Low castes 29
Le Mesurier, C. R. J. 28 Low Caste people 29
Lee, Rev. Samuel 18, 120 Lower classes 29
Leelavati 82 Luddako 29
Li-keli l3l

M
MADAMPAI 64 Mahayana Buddhism 7, 36, 40, 57, 95
Madavi, the Courtesan 107 Mahayanistic influence 36, 40
Maddala 109 Mahinda 70, 71, 72, 76
Madhura 10, 12, 14, 43, 52, 64, 77, 163 Mahinda IV 42
Magadhi 61 Mahiyangana 64, 72
Magama 37 Maitreya Bodhisattva 95
Magh 25, 43 Major Sinhalese Groups 23, 30
Magha of Kalinga 43 Makara 91
Mahabalipuram91, 104 Makutamuttasala 108
Mahabamba 63 Malabar 54, 55, 106, 132, 149, 154,
Mahabharaza 4, 5, 17, 18 155, 156, 157, 160, 168, 169, 175,
Mahabodhi Society of Ceylon 74 176
Maha Guru 120 Malabar dynasty of Kandy 45
Mahanama 8058, Malabar princes 175, 177, 178
Mahanuwara 174 Malalas 175, 176, 179
Mahaparinibbana 69, 70, 95 Malala Kathava 175-181
Mahaperahera 121 Malalu 176,178
Maharaja-lila pose 90, 96 Malawaradesa 132, 190
Maharashtra 39 Malaysia 55, 190
Mahasalipatam 19 Malayalathar 55, 78
Mahasammata 27 Malayalee 176
Mahasena 34, 35, 36, 78, 80 Malaya 8, 108
Maha vail Gang a 38 Malaya Raju of Malaya Rata 126, 128
Mohmama 11, 12, 14, 16, 23, 25, 32, Malays 20
35,37,38,39, 49, 72, 78, 80, 92, Male Rajuruvo 128
100, 107, 116, 117 Malik Kafur 44
Mahavihara 40 Mallu 178
Mahaviahnu 66, 162, 163, 175 “Man and Horse”, Stone Sculpture 90
Maha Vishnu devala of Dondra 120, Manabharana 46, 47, 48, 112
175 Mannampitiya 20
 9

Manavanna 39, 40 Mesha rasi 154

Mandalagiri Vihara 89 Mesha Sankramam 154
Mandodhari 5 Message of the Sanchi Relics 75
Mangalam 144 Mihindu IV 42
Manickavasagar 97, 98 Mihindu V 42
Manicka Mahage 120 Mihintale 71, 89
Manimekhalai 61, 76 Mina rasi 154
Mantapa 8, 104, 108 Minibar 142
Matttha hette 120, 146 Minneriya 89
Mantrams 161, 162 Mithuna figures in Temple Art 90
Mantravadi 165 Misra Sinhala 173
Mantrikan 165 Mitta 47
Maradanamaduwa-Tabbowa Culture 32 Modder, Frank 147
Marambe, A.J.W. 176 Mogaliputta Tissa Thera 70
Maravara 176, 177 Mogallana 73
Mara yuddhaya 119 Mohini 64
Marriage customs of Kerala 143 Monolithic Rathas 91
Marumakkattayam 166, 167, 168, 170 Moonstone 88, 91, 103
Marutapiravika Valli 51 Moors 18, 19, 20
Maruvaliya 134, 174 Moriya 23, 34, 35, 41
Masks 129, 162 Mount Meru 2
Masquerade of South Ceylon 129 Mrudanga 109
Masulipatarn 19 Muhammadans 18, 19
Matrimonial links 33, 47, 60 Muhammadan power in S. India 50
Mattu 171 Mukkuver 21, 52
Mavittapuram 51-52 Mullai natar 53
Mayne, Sir Henry 166 Muni tandavam 127
Mayurapada Thera 82 Munkudumai 149
Mayura Sandesa 113 Munneswaram 66, 67, 90, 128, 179
Mayura Vannama 125, 126 Music of South India 118
Mediterranean racial type 14 Musical instruments 113
Meekaman 53 Muslim 17, 18, 19, 20
Meghaduta 41, 84 Muttusam 166
Mei 107 Mylapuri 175, 178
Mendis, G.C. 55

N
NADAGAMS 119 Nagexcoil 54, 169
Naga 11, 12, 64, 67, 125, 149 Naik dynasty 43
Nagadwipa 59, 72 Nairs 141
Naga Nainativu 60 Nakuleswaram 67
Nagapooshani Amman Kovil 67 Nala 6
Nagaraja 91 Nalanda Gedige 57, 104
Nagarjuna 36 Nalangana 116, 117
Nagarjunakoda 36 Nalupura 106, 171
 10

NflHurutun Muni 84 Nehru, Jawaharlal 15, 70, 93

Namaskara 67 Nekati 162, 164
Narayana 63 Neithal 53
Narendra Sinha 45 Nell, Louis 152
Natanadi Vadya Ranjanam 127 Nestorian Cross 18
Nataraja 97, 98, 99, 112, 127 Nestorian Persians 18
Nat ha 66 New Year Day 154
National Day 154 Nikayas 80
Natya 117 Nikaya Sanghrahaya 26
Navandanna 23, 24 Nirohiyata 178
Navaramani C. S. 85 Niti Nighanduuia 24, 27
Navaratnam, Kalai Pulavar N. 171 Nittavela 13
Navaratna Vanniyan 45, 46 Nittevo 13
Nayyadi Vannama 125 Nona gate 154
Negombo 20 Nritta 124
Negroid 13 Nritta Vannama 124
Negritto 13

o
ODDIYAR53 Order of the Bhikunis 78
Odenan, Tacholi 136 Orissa 10
Odoric, Friar 142 Oruvila grant 26, 59
Ohoriya 146 Ottam Tullal 123
Ola Mss. 152 Otti 167
011 164

P
PABBAJA 16 Pandukabhaya 28, 41, 62, 92
Pacceka Buddha 28, 29 Panduvas 14
Padakkama 149 Pandyas 38, 39, 40, 42, 43, 44, 57, 59
Pahana 162 Pandyan architecture 104
Palai 53 Pandyan dynasty 34
Palar 54 Pandyan invasion 56
Pali 80, 81 Pandyan kingdom 17, 64
Pali Jatakas 83 Pandyan regalia 42
Pali literature 80 Panikker 138, 175
Palisakali 131 Panikker Chiefs 175, 177, 178
Palk Strait 141 Panikki 175
Pallavas 17, 39, 40, 56, 57 Pankuliya Buddha 93
Pallava art 40, 91, 104 Pansya panas Jataka Potha 83
Pallava grantha 40 Pantalayani 142
Panadura 141 Farakiamabahu 1 42, 43, 48, 108, 112,
Panchanga lift 156 116
Pandu 14,47 Parakramabahu II 47, 49, 78, 83
 ——

11

Parakramabahu V 83, 113 Pieris, Sir Paul 67, 120

Parakramabahu VI 20, 26, 44, 64, 84, Pilla charm of Malabar 160
115 Pilli charm of Ceylon 160
Parakramabahu VIII 43 Pirith chanting 36, 162

Parakrama Panditha 82 Piyadasi 15

Parakrama Pandu 43 Place names 60
Parameswara Varman I 40 Planetary deities 164
Parantaka I 42 Polonnaruwa 17, 20, 28, 57, 80, 88, 93,
Paranavitana 15, 27, 36, 37, 38, 40, 51, 94, 97, 98, 99, 101
58, 89, 92, 93, 94, 99, 104 Polonnaruwa bronzes 17, 97, 98, 99, 153
Parvati 65, 97^ 98, 102 Polonnaruwa frescoes 101
Paraver 84 Polyandry 145
Paravi Sandesa 63, 84, 113, 114
Pomparippu 32
Parinirvana of the Buddha 94 Portuguese 21, 43, 45, 59, 120
Pataliputra 11 Poson 37, 69, 70, 72
Patatantri 113 Pot dance 130
Pathala loka 4
Pot drum 113

Pathiraja pirivena 83 Potter 30

Pattini 35, 62, 65, 66, 96, 112, 162, 163 Potgul Vihara Rock-cut Sculpture 94
Paulusz 136 Poya days 36
Pavun mala 149 Pralaya Tandavam 127
PenaKima 161 Pregnancy gift 48
Perahera 72, 121 Pre-Buddhist Age 32
Perakumba Sirita 44 Pre-Buddhistic Ceylon 24

Perera B. S. 60 Pre-Buddhist India 15

Periods of Indian History Pre-historic Ceylon 13, 32, 33

Chera 38, 39, 42, 44 Pre-Portuguese 33

Chola 57 Pre-Vijayan epoch 33
Gupta 40 Primitive Calls 152
Pallava 57 Prinsep 15
Pandya 57 Protector of the Island 62
Viiayanagar 58 Ptolemy 146
Periods of Sinhalese Literature Pujavaliya 82
Anuradhapura-Polonaruwa Pukkusa 28
Dambadenya Period 82 Pulathinagar 40
—
Kurunegala Polonaruwa Pulikesin II 39
Kotte Period 83 Puliyankulame monastery 97
Sitawaka—Kandy Period 85 — Punkahagama 112
Persians 25 Purana Namavaliya 84
Pertold 160 Purohit 26
Pictorial art of Ceylon 99 Puttalam 141

R
RABAN 158 Rain festival 49
Raghavan M. D. 20, 112, 113, 127 Rajarata 42
 12

Raja Raja Varraa Raja 174 Rasa 117

Raja Raja I 6 Rasanayagam 38, 50, 55, 149, 168
Rajadhi Raja 43 Rasavahim 76, 83
Rajagopalachari, C, 2 Rashtrakutas 42
Rajakarya 180 Rathas of Mahabalipuram 91
Rctjaratnakaraya 84 Ratnapura Saman devala 68, 120
Rajavaliya 8 Ravana 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Rakshasas 2, 4, 5, 6, 129 Rayigam 44, 59
Rama 4, 7, 31, 63 Reefs of Taprobane 67
Rama’s Bow 63 Rodiyas 14
Ramachandran T. N. 78, 92 Romans 18
Ramayana 2, 4, 5, 11 Roman Catholicism 61
Rameswaram 43 Rowland, Benjamin 100
Ramasala 54 Royal families 25
Ramnad 54 Rural Kerala 145
Rapson E.J. 9 Ruvanvelisaya dagoba 35, 76

SABARA 13 Samhara Tandavam 127

Sabaragamuwa 64 13, Samharam 128
Sacred Buddhist Texts 80 Samudra Gupta 40
Sacred dances 68, 119, 121 Sanchi 73, 74, 75
Sacred Tooth 119 Sandakada Pahana 91
Sadharma Lankavatara Sutra 7 Sandesa Kavya 83, 84, 107, 113
Sadharmalanharaya 28, 83 Sandhya Tandavam 127
Sadharmo-ratnakaraya 84 x Sandhya Vannanam 151
Sadha Tissa 35 Sangam Age 33, 34, 38, 51, 76, 77
Saiva bronzes 58 Sangamitta 72
Saiva Saints 98 Sangamitta Day 72
Saiva Siddhanta philosophy 67 Sangha 71
Saivaism 67 Sankaranti 154
Saivite deities 67 Sanskrit 60, 80, 81
Saka Bra 63 Sanskrit inscriptions 40
Sakhya prince 14 Santyam 107
Sakra 10, 126 Sarandib 11
Salagama 18, 19, 23 Sarangadeva 126
Salagama flag 19 Sarasvati 5
Salankayanas 19 Saratchandra E.R. 48, 49, 61, 117, 118
Salavaua 67 Sariputta 73
Sail gotra 19 Sarpa sirsa 125
Saman 62, 64 Sartorial fashions 145, 171
Saman of Ratnapura 68, 201
dev-aia Sasa Jataka 82
Samantapasadika 80 Sastras 48
Samatuti 25 Satara Varan Deviyo 97
Sambandham 144, 169, 170 Satara Varan Deviupatha 63
 2

13

Satavahanas 17, 39, 46 Sita Bliya 1,

Sattvika 117 Sitavaka 6, 181

Script, Sinhalese & Malayalam 152 Siupada 132

Sederaman J,E. 127 Siva 4, 5, 65, 97, 98, 101, 104, 128,
129
Sclabhaya Siva devalas of Polonnarowa 105
Selalihini Sandesa 64, 84, 113, 115 Siva Nataraja pose 112

Sena 16, 34 Sivastra 5

Sena II 42 Sivaramsunurthi C, 100

Sena V 42 Sivatandava Stotram 7

Scngottuvan 35, 65 Skanda 62, 64, 65, 102, 119
Service Groups 30 Snake Charmer 125
Service tenures 68 Guru 126
Soliya

Sevakam 136, 137, 138, 139 Soma Vamsa 46

Seven Pagodas 91, 104 Somaskanda 98, 101
Shandar 141 Sopra 15
Siddharta 126 South India 16, 17, 19, 20,21, 24, 33,

Sigiri Graffiti 81 35, 36, 38, 39, 43, 44, 48, 50, 54,

Sigiriya frescoes 99, 100, 101, 148 75, 79, 80, 96, 117, 118, 140
Sihabahu 10, 11, 52 South Indian dynasties 57
Sihala 173 South Indian Kingdoms 39, 50, 55
Sihapura 10, 11 South Indian stage 117
Sil 146 Sparrow-hawk clans 23

Silameghavanna 41 Spirits of the deceased 162

Simhalas 7, 11 Spirit dances of Kerala 163

Sindhu horse 16 Spirit possession 164

Singala 107 Spittel R.L. 12

Sinha 23 Sringara Tandavam 127

Sinhabahu 38 Sri Krishna 3

Sinhala 7, 11, 77, 80, 173 Sri Mara Sri Vallabha 41

Sinhala Avadana 10 Srinivasan P,R. 92

Sinhala dwipa 7, 11 Sri Pada 64

Sinhala Natyam 107, 127 Sri Rahula 26, 84
Sinhalese language 80, 85, 86, 87 Sri Rama 67

Sinhalese architecture 88, 90 Srishli 128

Sinhalese Buddhist art 92 Sri Vallabha 41, 43

Sinhalese Caste system 23, 30 Sri Vikrama Raja Sinha 45

Sinhalese Magic 160 Stages 108

Sinhalese Marriage customs 143, 144 State Emblem of India 73

Sinhalese monarchy 9, 34, 41, 107 Stele 89

Sinhalese Music 118, 119, 132, Sthapathies 97

Sinhalese Place Names 60 Sthitbi 128

Sinhalese Race 56, 86, 87 Stupa 8, 82, 88, 89, 108

Sinhalese School of Painting 99, 101 Symbols 92
Sin Sangabo 35 Symbolic figures of animals 91, 97
Sirtsavattu 11 Sudaliya 134, 174

Sita Ammen kovil 3 Sudarsana Chakra 98

 14

Suddha Tandavam 127 Sundara Pandya 43

Sudra 28 Supparaka 10, 21
Sugriva 8 Suratissa 16
Sukhasana pose 90, 101 Surya 97
Sumali 4 Sueeta abharana 123
Sumana 16 Sutighara Cetiya 112
Sumana kuta 12, 63, 72 Suvarna Vaikakshika 100
Sun God 130, 158 Swami Rock 101
Sundaramurti 67, 97, 98 Swaminatha Iyer V, 155

T
TAILANG 78, 81 Teligam 45
Tala 124 Temples of Polonaruwa 105
Talikeuu Kalyanam 170 Tennent, Emerson 143, 147
Tambiah H.W. 166, 170 Tesauialamai 166, 167, 169, 170
Tamils 50, 55, 59, 61, 175 Theravada Buddhism 36, 80, 81, 117
Tamil Culture 59, 1 19 Thera Mahanama 80
Tamil Cultural Society 59 Third Council 70, 74
Tamil Cultural Contribution 55, 56, 61 Tiloka Sundari 46
Tamil Cultural traits 57, 118 Tinnevelly 54
Tamil element in Ceylon 50, 51 Tiring a tale 91
Tamil householders’ terrace, Tiriyayi Rock Inscription 39, 40
Anuradhapura 51 Tirugnana Sambandhar 67, 97
Tamil Jewellery, Jaffna 169 Tiru-ila-nadu 7
Tamil Kingdom 50, 59 Tiruketiswaram 66, 67, 128
Tamil Nad 7, 140 Tirukkonamalai (Trincomalle) 52, 67
Tamil New Year's Day 154 Tisara Sandesa 113
Tamil poetical compositions 50 Tissa 16, 69
Tamil Samana 51 Tissamaharamaya 36
Tamil Schools 59 Tissa Mogaliputta Thera 70, 74, 75
Tamil-Sinhala Complex 57 Tiyar 144
Tamilakam 54 Todu (Toda) 169
Tamluk 16 Toluwila Buddha 93, 95,J103
Tamtalipti 16 Tomb os 20
Tambapaani 11, 14 Tondeswaram 67
Tandava 127 Tooth Relic 72
Taninayagam, Rev. Father Xavier 59 Topawewa 97
Taprobane 18 Totagamuwe Sri Rahula 26
Tara 96, 97 Totemistic tribes 10, 23
Taracha clans 23 Tottiyar 53
Tarawad 166, 167 Tovil 37
Taranipar kulam 52 Toail-pdli-upatha 64
Tavazhi 166, 167 Trade routes 16
15,
ayi 166 Traders 16, 27, 28
Telgana avuruddha 157 Transactions, R.A.S. 18
 15

Travancore 54, 142, 144 Tunsarana 82

Tribal organisation 23 Tuparama dagoba 8, 36
Trincomalee 39, 44, 52, 67, 101,il04 Tuparama of Polonnaruwa 90
Trincotnalee bronzes 101, 102 Turaga Vannama 126
Trikuta, Mount 2 Tumour, George 15
Triple Gem 82 TurumbeT 172
Tripura Tandavam 127 Tussta heaven 130

UDAYA 42 Upanayanam 48
Udekiki dance 129 Upasampada 71
Udupila 66 Upatissagama 11
Uggra Tandavam 127 Uppulvan 63, 120
Ukkira Singham 52 Ura 126
Uncillava 154, 158 Urns 32
Unniarcha 135 Urukku (Raksha) 161

V
VACIKA 117, 118 Vasantara Jataka Mss.
Vaduku 107 Vasuki 2
Vahalkade 89 Vattadage 89
Vahana 64 Vatteve Swami 26
Vaikuntha 63 Vaya Padal 51, 53
Vairodi Vannama 125 Vedas 7, 48, 69
Vaisya 24, 27 Vedangas 48
Vaithianathan, Sir Kanthia 98 Vedic Sacrificial dance 127
Vajirarama monastery 97 Vedisa devi 71
Vakuti 45 Vedisa giri 71
Valamua 106 Veddah 12, 13, 14, 23, 32, 65, 178, 179,
Vallaver 54 181
Valliamma 65 Vedda-Dravidian 87
Vamsa 24 Veddoid 12
Vannam 118, 124 Velakali 131
Vannathi 171 Velanda 24, 28
Vanni 64, 177, 180, 181 Velanda Kula 27 >

Vanni chiefs 52 Vellala 50, 57

Vanniyan 45, 52 Venerable Nanda 27
Vamtipuvatha 64 Ves 122, 127
Vanni Vithiya 177 Vesak 37, 61, 69, 70
Varamihira 70 Vessagiri 16, 27
Vararaja Singham 52 Vetti 171
Varna System 25 Vibhishana 5, 6, 7, 51, 62, 97, 115
Vamashrama 38 Vibhishana devala 68
Vanina Kula 53 Vidagama Maitreya Thera 84
 16

Vidagami Swarai 26 Vinodam 107

Viharamahadcvi 37 Vira Atakeswara 44

Vijaya 9, 10, II, 12, 14, 19, 20, 23, 34 Vira Pandya 44
38, 47, 62
Vira Singha Patiraja 83

Vijayan epoch 32, 33 Viraha music 118, 119

Vijayabahu 1 17, 29, 42, 46, 47, 57 Virudhaka 97

Vijayabahu III 43 Virupaksha 97

Vijayakumar 38 Vishnu 4, 62, 63, 64, 131

Vijayabahu Firivena 26 Vishnu ashtakas 63

Vijayanagar 17, 44, 50, 55, 58, 102, Vishnu devala, Polonnaruwa 109
103 Vishnu Vidiya Kaai 63

Vijayatunga, J 38 Vishravas 4

Vijitagama 11 Vishu day 154

Vikramaditya 40 Viahu Kayyittam 157
Vilagamula Maha Thera 83 Visbwakarma 4, 6

Vina 179 Visuddhi magga 80

Vinajra 70 Visuddhi-mrghasannoyo 82

w
WANSA 24, 39 Water sports 49
Warsambodhi Thera 136 Wells, H. G. 70
Wasagama 143 Wickramasinha, Martin 49
Washerman. 30, 172 Wijeratne, Sir Edwin 74
Water-cutting ceremony 83, 121 Wood carvings ofEmbekke devala 111

XAVIER Taninayagam Rev. Father

YAKKAS 7, 10, 11, 12, 32, 52, 62, 63, Yalpanai Vaspamala 38
64, 128 Yama 4, 97
Yakkadessa (Yakkadura) 164 Yamuna 125
„
Yakshas 12 Yantraya 161
Yakshinls 12 Yapahuwa 110, 111, 117