Chapter I (3)

A signal effect of this regal policy, and of the growing diffusion of Buddhism, is to be traced in the impulse which it communicated to the reclamation of lands and the extension of cultivation. For more than three hundred years no mention is made in the Singhalese annals of any mode of maintaining the priesthood other than the royal distribution of clothing and voluntary offerings of food. They resorted for the "royal alms" either to the residence of the authorities or to halls specially built for their accommodation [1], to which they were summoned by "the shout of refection;" [2] the ordinary priests receiving rice, "those endowed with the gift of preaching, clarified butter, sugar, and honey."[3] Hospitals and medicines for their use, and rest houses on their journeys, were also provided at the public charge.[4] These expedients were available so long as the numbers of the priesthood were limited; but such were the multitudes who were tempted to withdraw from the world and its pursuits, in order to devote themselves to meditation and the diffusion of Buddhism, that the difficulty became practical of maintaining them by personal gifts, and the alternative suggested itself of setting apart lands for their support. This innovation was first resorted to during an interregnum. The Singhalese king Walagam Bahu, being expelled from his capital by a Malabar usurpation B.C. 104, was unable to continue the accustomed regal bounty to the priesthood; dedicated certain lands while in exile in Rohuna, for the support of a fraternity "who had sheltered him there."[5] The precedent thus established, was speedily seized upon and extended; lands were everywhere set apart for the repair of the sacred edifices[6], and eventually, about the beginning of the Christian era, the priesthood acquired such an increase of influence as sufficed to convert their precarious eleemosynary dependency into a permanent territorial endowment; and the practice became universal of conveying estates in mortmain on the construction of a wihara or the dedication of a temple.[7]

[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xx. p. 123; xxii. p. 132,135.]

[Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxviii. p. 167.]

[Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxii. p. 196-7.]

[Footnote 4: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxii. p. 196 xxxvii. p. 244; _Rajaratnacari_, p. 39, 41.]

[Footnote 5: _Mahawanso_, ch, xxxiii. p. 203. Previous to this date a king of Rohuna, during the usurpation of Elala, B.C. 205, had appropriated lands near Kalany, for the repairs of the dagoba.--_Rajaratnacari_, p. 37.]

[Footnote 6: In the reign of Batiya Tissa, B.C. 20. _Mahawanso_,, ch. xxxiv. p. 212; _Rajaratnacari_, p. 51.]

[Footnote 7: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxiv. p. 214.]

[Sidenote: B.C. 104.]

The corporate character of the recipients served to neutralise the obligations by which they were severally bound; the vow of poverty, though compulsory on an individual priest, ceased to be binding on the community of which he was a member; and whilst, on his own behalf, he was constrained to abjure the possession of property, even to the extent of one superfluous cloth, the wihara to which he was attached, in addition to its ecclesiastical buildings, and its offerings in gems and gold, was held competent to become the proprietor of broad and fertile lands.[1] These were so bountifully bestowed by royal piety, by private munificence, and by mortuary gifts, that ere many centuries had elapsed the temples of Ceylon absorbed a large proportion of the landed property of the kingdom, and their possessions were not only exempted from taxation, but accompanied by a right to the compulsory labour of the temple tenants.[2]

[Footnote 1: HARDY'S _Eastern Monachism_, ch. viii. p. 68.]

[Footnote 2: The _Rajaratnacari_ mentions an instance, A.D. 62, of eight thousand rice fields bestowed in one grant; and similar munificence is recorded in numerous instances prior, to A.D. 204.--_Rajaratnacari_, p. 57, 59, 64, 74, 113, &c. _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxv. p. 223, 224; ch. xxxvi. p. 233.]

As the estates so made over to religious uses lay for the most part in waste districts, the quantity of land which was thus brought under cultivation necessarily involved large extensions of the means of irrigation. To supply these, reservoirs were formed on such a scale as to justify the term "consecrated lakes," by which they are described in the Singhalese annals.[1]

[Footnote 1: _Rajaratnacari_, ch. ii. p. 37; _Rajavali_, p. 237.]

Where the circumstances of the ground permitted, their formation was effected by drawing an embankment across the embouchure of a valley so as to arrest and retain the waters by which it was traversed, and so vast were the dimensions of some of these gigantic tanks that many yet in existence still cover an area of from fifteen to twenty miles in circumference. The ruins of that at Kalaweva, to the north-west of Dambool, show that its original circuit could not have been less than forty miles, its retaining bund being upwards of twelve miles long. The spill-water of stone, which remains to the present time, is "perhaps one of the most stupendous monuments of misapplied human labour in the island."[1]

[Footnote 1: TURNOUR, _Mahawanso_, p. 12. The tank of Kalaweva was formed by Dhatu Sena, A.D. 459.--_Mahawanso_, ch. xxxviii. p. 257.]

[Sidenote: B.C. 104.]

The number of these stupendous works, which were formed by the early sovereigns of Ceylon, almost exceeds credibility. Kings are named in the native annals, each of whom made from fifteen to thirty[1], together with canals and all the appurtenances for irrigation. Originally these vast undertakings were completed "for the benefit of the country," and "out of compassion for living creatures;"[2] but so early as the first century of the Christian era, the custom became prevalent of forming tanks with the pious intention of conferring the lands which they enriched on the church. Wide districts, rendered fertile by the interception of a river and the formation of suitable canals, were appropriated to the maintenance of the local priesthood[3]; a tank and the thousands of acres which it fertilised were sometimes assigned for the perpetual repairs of a dagoba[4], and the revenues of whole villages and their surrounding rice fields were devoted to the support of a single wihara.[5]

[Footnote 1: _Rajaratnacari_, p. 41, 45, 54, 55; King Saidaitissa B.C. 137, made "eighteen lakes" (_Rajavali_, p. 233). King Wasabha, who ascended the throne A.D. 62, "caused sixteen large lakes to be enclosed" (_Rajaratnacari_, p. 57). Detu Tissa, A.D. 253, excavated six (_Rajavali_, p. 237), and King Maha Sen, A.D. 275, seventeen (_Mahawanso_, ch, xxxviii. p. 236).]

[Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch, xxxvii. p. 242.]

[Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxiv. p. 210; xxxv. p. 221; xxxviii. p. 237, _Rajaratnacari_, ch. ii. p. 57, 59, 64, 69, 74.]

[Footnote 4: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxv. p. 215, 218, 223; ch. xxxvii. p. 234; _Rajaratnacari_, ch. ii. p. 51. TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 21.]

[Footnote 5: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxv. p. 218, 221; _Rajaratnacari_, ch. ii. p. 51; _Rajaviai_, p. 241.]

So lavish were these endowments, that one king, who signalised his reign by such extravagances as laying a carpet seven miles in length, "in order that pilgrims might proceed with unsoiled feet all the way from the Kadambo river (the Malwatté oya) to the mountain Chetiyo (Mihintala)," awarded a priest who had presented him with a draught of water during the construction of a wihara, "land within the circumference of half a yoyana (eight miles) for the maintenance of the temple."[1]

[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxiv, p. 3.]

[Sidenote: B.C. 104.]

It was in this manner that the beautiful tank at Mineri, one of the most lovely of these artificial lakes, was enclosed by Maha Sen, A.D. 275; and, together with the 80,000 amonams of ground which it waters, was conferred on the Jeytawana Wihara which the king had just erected at Anarajapoora.[1]

[Footnote 1: _Rajaratnacari_, ch. ii. p. 69.]

To identify the crown still more closely with the interests of agriculture, some of the kings superintended public works for irrigating the lands of the temples[1]; and one more enthusiastic than the rest toiled in the rice fields to enhance the merit of conferring their produce on the priesthood.[2]

[Footnote 1: TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 33.]

[Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxiv. The Buddhist kings of Burmah are still accustomed to boast, almost in the terms of the _Mahawanso_, of the distinction which they have earned, by the multitudes of tanks they have constructed or restored. See YULE'S _Narrative of the Mission to Ava in 1855_, p. 106.]

These broad possessions, the church, under all vicissitudes and revolutions, has succeeded in retaining to the present day. Their territories, it is true, have been diminished in extent by national decay; the destruction of works for irrigation has converted into wilderness and jungle plains once teeming with fertility; and the mild policy of the British government, by abolishing _raja-kariya_[1], has emancipated the peasantry, who are no longer the serfs either of the temples or the chiefs. But in every district of the island the priests are in the enjoyment of the most fertile lands, over which the crown exercises no right of taxation; and such is the extent of their possessions that, although their precise limits have not been ascertained by the local government, they have been conjectured with probability to be equal to one-third of the cultivated land of the island.

[Footnote 1: Compulsory labour.]

[Sidenote: B.C. 104.]

One peculiarity in the Buddhist ceremonial served at all times to give a singular impulse to the progress of horticulture. Flowers and garlands are introduced in its religious rites to the utmost excess. The atmosphere of the wiharas and temples is rendered oppressive with the perfume of champac and jessamine, and the shrine of the deity, the pedestals of his image, and the steps leading to the temple are strewn thickly with blossoms of the nagaha and the lotus. At an earlier period the profusion in which these beautiful emblems were employed in sacred decorations appears almost incredible; the _Mahawanso_ relates that the Ruanwellé dagoba, which was 270 feet in height, was on one occasion "festooned with garlands from pedestal to pinnacle till it resembled one uniform bouquet;" and at another time, it and the lofty dagoba at Mihintala were buried under heaps of jessamine from the ground to the summit.[1] Fa Hian, in describing his visit to Anarajapoora in the fourth century, dwells with admiration and wonder on the perfumes and flowers lavished on their worship by the Singhalese[2]; and the native historians constantly allude as familiar incidents to the profusion in which they were employed on ordinary occasions, and to the formation by successive kings of innumerable gardens for the floral requirements of the temples. The capital was surrounded on all sides[3] by flower gardens, and these were multiplied so extensively that, according to the _Rajaratnacari_, one was to be found within a distance of four leagues in any part of Ceylon.[4] Amongst the regulations of the temple built at Dambedinia, in the thirteenth century, was "every day an offering of 100,000 flowers, and each day a different flower."[5]

[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxiv.; _Rajaratnacari_, p. 52, 53.]

[Footnote 2: FA HIAN. _Foè Kouè Ki_, ch. xxxviii. p. 335.]

[Footnote 3: _Rajavali_, p. 227; _Mahawanso_, ch. xi. p. 67.]

[Footnote 4: _Rajaratnacari_, p. 29, 49. Amongst the officers attached to the great establishments of the priests in Mihintala, A.D. 246, there are enumerated in an inscription engraven on a rock there, a secretary, a treasurer, a physician, a surgeon, a painter, twelve cooks, twelve thatchers, ten carpenters, six carters, and _two florists_.]

[Footnote 5: _Rajaratnacari_, p. 103. The same book states that another king, in the fifteenth century, "offered no less than 6,480,320 sweet smelling flowers" at the shrine of the Tooth.--_Ib._, p. 136.]

[Sidenote: B.C. 104.]

Another advantage conferred by Buddhism on the country was the planting of fruit trees and esculent vegetables for the gratuitous use of travellers in all the frequented parts of the island. The historical evidences of this are singularly corroborative of the genuineness of the Buddhist edicts engraved on various rocks and monuments in India, the deciphering of which was the grand achievement of Prinsep and his learned coadjutors. On the pillars of Delhi, Allahabad, and other places, and on the rocks of Girnar and Dhauli, there exist a number of Pali inscriptions purporting to be edicts of Asoca (the Dharmasoca of the _Mahawanso_), King of Magadha, in the third century before the Christian era, who, on his conversion to the religion of Buddha, commissioned Mahindo, his son, to undertake its establishment in Ceylon. In these edicts, which were promulgated in the vernacular dialect, the king endeavoured to impress both upon his subjects and allies, as well as those who, although aliens, were yet "united in the law" of Buddha, the divine precepts of their great teacher; prominent amongst which are the prohibition against taking animal life[1], and the injunction that, "everywhere wholesome vegetables, roots, and fruit trees shall be cultivated, and that on the roads wells shall be dug and trees planted for the enjoyment of men and animals." In apparent conformity with these edicts, one of the kings of Ceylon, Addagaimunu, A.D. 20, is stated in the _Mahawanso_ to have "caused to be planted throughout the island every description of fruit-bearing creepers, and interdicted the destruction of animal life,"[2] and similar acts of pious benevolence, performed by command of various other sovereigns, are adverted to on numerous occasions.

[Footnote 1: It is curious that one of these edicts of Asoca, who was contemporary with Devenipiatissa, is addressed to "all the conquered territories of the raja, even unto the ends of the earth; as in Chola, in Pida, in Keralaputra, _and in Tambapanni_ (or Ceylon)." This license of speech, reminding one of the grandiloquent epistles "from the Flaminian Gate," was no doubt assumed in virtue of the recent establishment of Buddhism, or, as it is called in the _Mahawanso_ "the religion of the Vanquisher," and Asoca, as its propagator, thus claims to address the converts as his "subjects."]

[Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxv. p. 215. The king Upatissa, A.D. 368, in the midst of a solemn ceremonial, "observing ants, and other insects drowning in an inundation, halted, and having swept them towards the with the feathers of a peacock's tail, and enabled them to save a themselves, he continued the procession."--_Mahawanso_, ch. xxxvii p. 249; _Rajaratnacari_, p. 49, 52; _Rajavali_, p. 228.]

CHAP. VII

FATE OF THE ABORIGINES.

[Sidenote: B.C. 104.]

It has already been shown, that devotion and policy combined to accelerate the progress of social improvement in Ceylon, and that before the close of the third century of the Christian era, the island to the north of the Kandyan mountains contained numerous cities and villages, adorned with temples and dagobas, and seated in the midst of highly cultivated fields. The face of the country exhibited broad expanses of rice land, irrigated by artificial lakes, and canals of proportionate magnitude, by which the waters from the rivers, which would otherwise have flowed idly to the sea, were diverted inland in all directions to fertilise the rice fields of the interior.[1]

[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxv. xxxvii.]

[Sidenote: B.C. 104.]

In the formation of these prodigious tanks, the labour chiefly employed was that of the aboriginal inhabitants, the Yakkhos and Nagas, directed by the science and skill of the conquerors. Their contributions of this kind, though in the instance of the Buddhist converts they may have been to some extent voluntary, were, in general, the result of compulsion.[1] Like the Israelites under the Egyptians, the aborigines were compelled to make bricks[2] for the stupendous dagobas erected by their masters[3]; and eight hundred years after the subjugation of the island, the _Rajavali_ describes vast reservoirs and appliances for irrigation, as being constructed by the forced labour of the Yakkhos[4] under the superintendence of Brahman engineers.[5] This, to some extent, accounts for the prodigious amount of labour bestowed on these structures; labour which the whole revenue of the kingdom would not have sufficed to purchase, had it not been otherwise procurable.

[Footnote 1: In some instances the soldiers of the king were employed in forming works of irrigation.]

[Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxviii.]

[Footnote 3: _Ibid_., ch. xxvii.]

[Footnote 4: _Rajavali_, p. 237, 238. Exceptions to the extortion of forced labour for public works took place under the more pious kings, who made a merit of paying the workmen employed in the erection of dagobas and other religious monuments.--_Mahawanso_, ch, xxxv.]

[Footnote 5: _Maharwanso_, ch. x.]

Under this system, the fate of the aborigines was that usually consequent on the subjugation of an inferior race by one more highly civilised. The process of their absorption into the dominant race was slow, and for centuries they continued to exist distinct, as a subjugated people. So firmly rooted amongst them was the worship both of demons and serpents, that, notwithstanding the ascendency of Buddhism, many centuries elapsed before it was ostensibly abandoned; from time to time, "demon offerings" were made from the royal treasury[1]; and one of the kings, in his enlarged liberality, ordered that for every ten villages there should be maintained an astrologer and a "devil-dancer," in addition to the doctor and the priest.[2]

[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. x.; TURNOUR'S _Epitome_. p. 23.]

[Footnote 2: TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 27; _Rajaratnacari_, ch. ii.; _Rajavali_, p. 241.]

Throughout the Singhalese chronicles, the notices of the aborigines are but casual, and occasionally contemptuous. Sometimes they allude to "slaves of the Yakkho tribe,"[1] and in recording the progress and completion of the tanks and other stupendous works, the _Mahawanso_ and the _Rajaratnacari_, in order to indicate the inferiority of the natives to their masters, speak of their conjoint labours as that of "men and snakes,"[2] and "men and demons."[3]

[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. x.]

[Footnote 2: Ibid., ch. xix, p. 115.]

[Footnote 3: The King Maha-Sen, anxious for the promotion of agriculture, caused many tanks to be made "by men and devils."--_Mahawanso_, ch. xxxvii.; UPHAM'S _Transl.; Rajaratnacari_, p. 69; _Rajavali_, p. 237.]

[Sidenote: B.C. 104.]

Notwithstanding the degradation of the natives, it was indispensable to "befriend the interests" of a race so numerous and so useful; hence, they were frequently employed in the military expeditions of the Wijayan sovereigns[1], and the earlier kings of that dynasty admitted the rank of the Yakkho chiefs who shared in these enterprises. They assigned a suburb of the capital for their residence[2], and on festive occasions they were seated on thrones of equal eminence with that of the king.[3] But every aspiration towards a recovery of their independence was checked by a device less characteristic of ingenuity in the ascendant race, than of simplicity combined with jealousy in the aborigines. The feeling was encouraged and matured into a conviction which prevailed to the latest period of the Singhalese sovereignty, that no individual of pure Singhalese extraction could be elevated to the supreme power, since no one could prostrate himself before one of his own nation.[4]

[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso,_ ch. x.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid.,_ ch. x. p. 67.]

[Footnote 3: _Ibid.,_ p. 66.]

[Footnote 4: JOINVILLE'S _Asiat. Res,_ vol. vii. p. 422.]

For successive generations, however, the natives, although treated with partial kindness, were regarded as a separate race. Even the children of Wijayo, by his first wife Kuweni, united themselves with their maternal connexions on the repudiation of their mother by the king, "and retained the attributes of Yakkhos,"[1] and by that designation the natives continued to be distinguished down to the reign of Dutugaimunu.

[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso,_ ch. vii.]

[Sidenote: B.C. 104.]

In spite of every attempt at conciliation, the process of amalgamation between the two races was reluctant and slow. The earliest Bengal immigrants sought wives among the Tamils, on the opposite coast of India[1]; and although their descendants intermarried with the natives, the great mass of the population long held aloof from the invaders, and occasionally vented their impatience in rebellion.[2] Hence the progress of civilisation amongst them was but partial and slow, and in the narratives of the early rulers of the island there is ample evidence that the aborigines long retained their habits of shyness and timidity.

[Footnote 1: _Ibid.,_ p. 53.]

[Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch, lxxxv.]

Notwithstanding the frequent resort of every nation of antiquity to its coasts, the accounts of the first voyagers are almost wholly confined to descriptions of the loveliness of the country, the singular brilliancy of its jewels, the richness of its pearls, the sagacity of its elephants, and the delicacy and abundance of its spices; but the information which they furnish regarding its inhabitants is so uniformly meagre, as to attest the absence of intercourse; and the writers of all nations, Romans, Greeks, Arabians, Chinese and Indians, concur in their allusions to the unsocial and uncivilised customs of the islanders.[1]

[Footnote 1: See an account of these singular peculiarities, Vol. I. P. IV. c. vii.]

As the Bengal adventurers advanced into the interior of the island, a large section of the natives withdrew into the forests and hunting grounds on the eastern and southern coasts.[1] There, subsisting by the bow[2] and the chase, they adhered, with moody tenacity, to the rude habits of their race; and in the Veddah of the present day, there is still to be recognised a remnant of the untamed aborigines of Ceylon.[3]

[Footnote 1: _Hiouen Thsang,_ the Chinese geographer, who visited India in the seventh century, says that at that time the Yakkhos had retired to the south-east corner of Ceylon;--and here their descendants, the Veddahs, are found at the present day,--_Voyages,_ &c., liv. iv. p. 200.]

[Footnote 2: _Mahawanso,_ ch. xxiv. p. 145, xxxiii. p. 204.]

[Footnote 3: DE ALWIS, _Sidath Sangara,_ p. xvii. For an account of the Veddahs and their present condition, see Vol. II. P. ix. ch. iii.]

[Sidenote: B.C. 104.]

Even those of the original race who slowly conformed to the religion and habits of their masters, were never entirely emancipated from the ascendency of their ancient superstitions. Traces of the worship of snakes and demons are to the present hour clearly perceptible amongst them; the Buddhists still resort to the incantations of the "devil dancers" in case of danger and emergency[1]; a Singhalese, rather than put a Cobra de Capello to death, encloses the reptile in a wicker cage, and sets it adrift on the nearest stream; and in the island of Nainativoe, to the south-west of Jaffa, there was till recently a little temple, dedicated to the goddess Naga Tambiran, in which consecrated serpents were tenderly reared by the Pandarams, and daily fed at the expense of the worshippers.[2]

[Footnote 1: For an account of Demon worship as it still exists in Ceylon, see Sir J. EMERSON TENNANT'S _History of Christianity in Ceylon,_ ch. v. p. 236.]

[Footnote 2: CASIE CHITTY'S _Gazetteer, &c.,_ p. 169.]

CHAP. VIII

EXTINCTION OF THE "GREAT DYNASTY."

[Sidenote: B.C. 104.]

From the death of Dutugaimunu to the exhaustion of the superior dynasty on the death of Malta-Sen, A.D. 301, there are few demonstrations of pious munificence to signalise the policy of the intervening sovereigns. The king whom, next to Devenipiatissa and Dutugaimunu, the Buddhist historians rejoice to exalt as one of the champions of the faith, was Walagam-bahu I.[1], whose reign, though marked by vicissitudes, was productive of lasting benefit to the national faith. Walagam-bahu ascended the throne B.C. 104., but was almost immediately forced to abdicate by an incursion of the Malabars; who, concerting a simultaneous landing at several parts of the island, combined their movements so successfully that they seized on Anarajapoora, and drove the king into concealment in the mountains near Adam's Peak; and whilst one portion of the invaders returned laden with plunder to the Dekkan, their companions remained behind and held undisputed possession of the northern parts of Ceylon for nearly fifteen years.

[Footnote 1: Called in the _Mahawanso_, "Wata-gamini".]

[Sidenote: B.C. 104.]

In this and the frequent incursions which followed, the Malabar leaders were attracted by the wealth of the country to the north of the Mahawelli-ganga; the southern portion of the island being either too wild and unproductive to present a temptation to conquest, or too steep and inaccessible to afford facilities for invasion. Besides, the highlanders who inhabit the lofty ranges that lie around Adam's Peak; (a district known as Malaya, "the region of mountains and torrents,")[1] then and at all times exhibited their superiority over the lowlanders in vigour, courage, and endurance. Hence the petty kingdoms of Maya and Rohuna afforded on every occasion a refuge to the royal family when driven from the northern capital, and furnished a force to assist in their return and restoration. Walagam-bahu, after many years' concealment there, was at last enabled to resume the offensive, and succeeded in driving out the infidels, and recovering possession of the sacred city, an event which he commemorated in the usual manner by the erection of dagobas, tanks, and wiharas.

[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. vii.]

[Sidenote: B.C. 89.]

But the achievement by which most of all he entitled himself to the gratitude of the Singhalese annalists, was the reduction to writing of the doctrines and discourses of Buddha, which had been orally delivered by Mahindo, and previously preserved by tradition alone. These sacred volumes, which may be termed the Buddhist Scriptures, contain the Pittakataya, and its commentaries the Atthakatha, and were compiled by a company of priests in a cave to the north of Matelle, known as the Aloo-wihara.[1] This, and other caverns in which the king had sought concealment during his adversity, he caused to be converted into rock temples after his restoration to power. Amongst the rest, Dambool, which is the most remarkable of the cave temples of Ceylon from its vastness, its elaborate ornaments, and the romantic beauty of its situation and the scenery surrounding it.

[Footnote 1: _Rajaratnacari_, ch. i. p. 43. Abouzeyd states that at that time public writers were employed in recording the traditions of the island: "Le Royaume de Serendyb a une loi et des docteurs qui s'assemblent de temps en temps comme se réunissent chez nous les personnes qui recreillent les traditions du prophète, et les Indiens se rendent auprès des docteurs, et écrivent sous leurs dictée, la vie de leurs prophètes et les préceptes de leur loi."--REINAUD, _Relation, &c.,_ tom. i. p. 127.]

[Sidenote: B.C. 62.]

[Sidenote: B.C. 50.]

The history of the Buddhist religion in Ceylon is not, however, a tale of uniform prosperity. The first of its domestic enemies was Naga, the grandson of the pious Walagam-bahu, whom the native, historians stigmatise by the prefix of "chora" or the "marauder." His story is thus briefly but emphatically told in the _Mahawanso_: "During the reign of his father Mahachula, Chora Naga wandered through the island leading the life of a robber; returning on the demise of the king he assumed the monarchy; and in the places which had denied him an asylum during his marauding career, he impiously destroyed the wiharas.[1] After a reign of twelve years he was poisoned by his queen Anula, and regenerated in the Lokantariko hell."[2]

[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxiii.; _Rajarali_, p. 224; TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 19; _Rajaratnacari_, ch. i. p. 43, 44.]

[Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxiv. p. 209.]

[Sidenote: B.C. 47.]

[Sidenote: B.C. 41.]

His son, King Kuda Tissa, was also poisoned by his mother, in order to clear her own way to the throne. The Singhalese annals thus exhibit the unusual incident of a queen enrolled amongst the monarchs of the _great dynasty_--a precedent which was followed in after times; Queen Siwalli having reigned in the succeeding century, A.D. 37, Queen Lila-wati, in A.D. 1197, and Queen Kalyana-wati in A.D. 1202. From the excessive vileness of her character, the first of these Singhalese women who attained to the honours of sovereignty is denounced in the _Mahawanso_ as "the infamous Anula." In the enormity of her crimes and debauchery she was the Messalina of Ceylon;--she raised to the throne a porter of the palace with whom she cohabited, descending herself to the subordinate rank of Queen Consort, and poisoned him to promote a carpenter in his stead. A carrier of firewood, a Brahman, and numerous other paramours followed in rapid succession, and shared a similar fate, till the kingdom was at last relieved from the opprobrium by a son of Prince Tissa, who put the murderess to death, and restored the royal line in his own person. His successors for more than two centuries were a race of pious _fainéants_, undistinguished by any qualities, and remembered only by their fanatical subserviency to the priesthood.

[Sidenote: A.D. 209.]

Buddhism, relieved from the fury of impiety, was next imperilled by the danger of schism. Even before the funeral obsequies of Buddha, schism had displayed itself in Maghadha, and two centuries had not elapsed from his death till it had manifested itself on no less than seventeen occasions, and in each instance it was with difficulty checked by councils in which the priesthood settled the faith in relation to the points which gave rise to dispute; but not before the actual occurrence of secessions from the orthodox church.[1] The earliest differences were on questions of discipline amongst the colleges and fraternities at Anarajapoora; but in the reign of Wairatissa, A.D. 209, a formidable controversy arose, impugning the doctrines of Buddhism, and threatening for a time to rend in sunder the sacred unity of the church.[2]

[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. v. p. 21.]

[Footnote 2: Ibid., ch. xxxiii.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 209.]

Buddhism, although, tolerant of heresy, has ever been vehement in its persecution of schism. Boldly confident in its own superiority, it bears without impatience the glaring errors of open antagonists, and seems to exult in the contiguity of competing systems as if deriving strength by comparison. In this respect it exhibits a similarity to the religion of Brahma, which regards with composure shades of doctrinal difference, and only rises into jealous energy in support of the distinctions of caste, an infringement of which might endanger the supremacy of the priesthood.[1] To the assaults of open opponents the Buddhist displays the calmest indifference, convinced that in its undiminished strength, his faith is firm and inexpugnable; his vigilance is only excited by the alarm of internal dissent, and all his passions are aroused to stifle the symptoms of schism.[2]

[Footnote 1: Hence the indomitable hatred with which the Brahmans pursued the disciples of Buddhism from the fourth century before Christ to its final expulsion from Hindustan. "Abundant proofs," says Turnour, "may be adduced to show the fanatical ferocity with which these two great sects persecuted each other; and which, subsided into passive hatred and contempt, only when the parties were no longer placed in the position of actual collision."--Introd. _Mahawanso_, p. xxii.]

[Footnote 2: In its earliest form Buddhism was equally averse to persecution, and the _Mahawanso_ extols the liberality of Asoca in giving alms indiscriminately to the members of all religions _(Mahawanso_, ch. v. p. 23). A sect which is addicted to persecution is not likely to speak approvingly of toleration, but the _Mahawanso_ records with evident satisfaction the courtesy paid to the sacred things of Buddhism by the believers in other doctrines; thus the Nagas did homage to the relics of Buddha and mourned their removal from Mount Meru (_Mahawanso_, ch. xxxi. p. 189); the Yakkhos assisted at the building of dagobas to enshrine them, and the Brahmans were the first to respect the Bo-tree on its arrival in Ceylon (_Ib._ ch. xix. p. 119). COSMAS INDICOPLEUSTES, whose informant, Sopater, visited Ceylon in the sixth century, records that there was then the most extended toleration, and that even the Nestorian Christians had perfect freedom and protection for their worship.

Among the Buddhists of Burmah, however, "although they are tolerant of the practice of other religions by those who profess them, secession from the national faith, is rigidly prohibited, and a convert to any other form of faith incurs the penalty of death."--Professor WILSON, _Journ. Roy. Asiat. Soc._ vol. xvi. p. 261.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 209.]

This characteristic of the "religion of the Vanquisher" is in strict conformity, not alone with the spirit of his doctrine, but also with the letter of the law laid down for the guidance of his disciples. Two of the singular rock-inscriptions of India deciphered by Prinsep, inculcate the duty of leaving the profession of different faiths unmolested; on the ground, that "all aim at moral restraint and purity of life, although all cannot be equally successful in attaining to it." The sentiments embodied in one of the edicts[1] of King Asoca are very striking: "A man must honour his own faith, without blaming that of his neighbour, and thus will but little that is wrong occur. There are even circumstances under which the faith of others should be honoured, and in acting thus a man increases his own faith and weakens that of others. He who acts differently, diminishes his own faith and injures that of another. Whoever he may be who honours his own faith and blames that of others out of devotion to his own, and says, 'let us make our faith conspicuous,' that man merely injures the faith he holds. Concord alone is to be desired."

[Footnote 1: The twelfth tablet, which, as translated by BURNOUF and Professor WILSON, will be found in Mrs. SPEIR'S _Life in Ancient India_, book ii. ch. iv. p. 239.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 209.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 248.]

The obligation, to maintain the religion of Buddha was as binding as the command to abstain from assailing that of its rivals, and hence the kings who had treated the snake-worshippers with kindness, who had made a state provision for maintaining "offerings to demons," and built dwellings at the capital to accommodate the "ministers of foreign religions," rose in fierce indignation against the preaching of a firm believer in Buddha, who ventured to put an independent interpretation on points of faith. They burned the books of the Wytulians, as the new sect were called, and frustrated their irreligious attempt.[1] The first effort at repression was ineffectual. It was made by the King Wairatissa, A.D. 209; but within forty years the schismatic tendency returned, the persecution was renewed, and the apostate priests, after being branded on the back were ignominiously transported to the opposite coast of India.[2]

[Footnote 1: The _Mahawanso_ throws no light on the nature of the Wytulian (or Wettulyan) heresy (ch. xxvii. p. 227), but the _Rajaratnacari_ insinuates that Wytulia was a Brahman who had "subverted by craft and intrigue the religion of Buddha" (ch. ii, p. 61). As it is stated in a further passage that the priests who were implicated were stripped of their habits, it is evident that the innovation had been introduced under the garb of Buddha.--_Rajaratnacari_, ch. ii. p. 65.]

[Footnote 2: TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 25, _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxvi. p. 232. As the _Mahawanso_ intimates in another passage that amongst the priests who were banished to the opposite coast of India, there was one Sangha-mitta, "who was profoundly versed in the rites of the demon faith ('bhuta')," it is probable that out of the Wytulian heresy grew the system which prevails to the present day, by which the heterodox _dewales_ and halls for devil dances are built in close contiguity to the temples and wiharas of the orthodox Buddhists, and the barbarous rites of demon worship are incorporated with the abstractions of the national religion. On the restoration of Maha-Sen to the true faith, the _Mahawanso_ represents him as destroying the _dewales_ at Anarajapoora in order to replace them with wiharas (_Mahawanso_, ch. xxxvii. p. 237). An account of the mingling of Brahmanical with Buddhist worship, as it exists at the present day, will be found in HARDY'S _Oriental Monachism_, ch. xix. Professor H.H. WILSON, in his _Historical Sketch of the Kingdom of Pandya_, alludes to a heresy, which, anterior to the sixth century, disturbed the _sangattar_ or college of Madura; the leading feature of which was the admixture of Buddhist doctrines with the rite of the Brahmans, and "this heresy," he says, "some traditions assert was introduced from Ceylon."--_Asiat. Journ._ vol. iii. p. 218.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 275.]

The new sect had, however, established an interest in high places; and Sangha-mitta, one of the exiled priests, returning from banishment on the death of the king, so ingratiated himself with his successor, that he was entrusted with the education of the king's sons. One of the latter, Maha-Sen, succeeded to the throne, A.D. 275, and, openly professing his adoption of the Wytulian tenets, dispossessed the popular priesthood, and overthrew the Brazen Palace. With the materials of the great wihara, he constructed at the sacred Bo-tree a building as a receptacle for relics, and a temple in which the statue of Buddha was to be worshipped according to the rites of the reformed religion.[1]

[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxvii. p. 235.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 275.]

So bold an innovation roused the passions of the nation; the people prepared for revolt, and a conflict was imminent, when the schismatic Sangha-mitta was suddenly assassinated, and the king, convinced of his errors, addressed himself with energy to restore the buildings he had destroyed, and to redress the mischiefs chiefs caused by his apostacy. He demolished the dewales of the Hindus, in order to use their sites for Buddhist wiharas; he erected nunneries, constructed the Jaytawanarama (a dagoba at Anarajapoora), formed the great tank of Mineri by drawing a dam across the Kara-ganga and that of Kandelay or Dantalawa, and consecrated the 20,000 fields which it irrigated to the Dennanaka Wihare.[1] "He repaired numerous dilapidated temples throughout the island, made offerings of a thousand robes to a thousand priests, formed sixteen tanks to extend cultivation--there is no defining the extent of his charity"--and having performed during his existence acts both of piety and impity, the _Mahawanso_ cautiously adds, "his destiny after death was according to his merits."[2]

[Footnote 1: TURNOUR's _Epitome_, p. 25.]

[Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxiii. p. 238.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 302.]

With King Maha-Sen end the glories of the "superior dynasty" of Ceylon. The "sovereigns of the _Suluwanse_, who followed," says the _Rajavali_, "were no longer of the unmixed blood, but the offspring of parents, only one of whom was descended from the sun, and the other from the bringer of the Bo-tree or the sacred tooth; on that account, because the God Sakkraia had ceased to watch over Ceylon, because piety had disappeared, and the city of Anarajapoora was in ruins, and because the fertility of the land was diminished, the kings who succeeded Maha-Sen were no longer reverenced as of old."[1]

[Footnote 1: _Rajavali_, p. 289.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 302.]

The prosperity of Ceylon, though it may not have attained its acme, was sound and auspicious in the beginning of the fourth century, when the solar line became extinct. Pihiti, the northern portion of the island, was that which most engaged the solicitude of the crown, from its containing the ancient capital, whence it obtained its designation of the Raja-ratta or country of the kings. Here the labour bestowed on irrigation had made the food of the population abundant, and the sums expended on the adornment of the city, the multitude of its sacred structures, the splendour of its buildings, and the beauty of its lakes and gardens, rendered it no inappropriate representative of the wealth and fertility of the kingdom.

Anarajapoora had from time immemorial been a venerated locality in the eyes of the Buddhists; it had been honoured by the visit of Buddha in person, and it was already a place of importance when Wijayo effected his landing in the fifth century before the Christian era. It became the capital a century after, and the King Pandukabhaya, who formed the ornamental lake which adjoined it, and planted gardens and parks for public festivities, built gates and four suburbs to the city; set apart ground for a public cemetery, and erected a gilded hall of audience, and a palace for his own residence.

The _Mahawanso_ describes with particularity the offices of the Naggaraguttiko, who was the chief of the city guard, and the organisation of the low caste Chandalas, who were entrusted with the cleansing of the capital and the removal of the dead for interment. For these and for the royal huntsmen villages were constructed in the environs, mingled with which were dwellings for the subjugated native tribes, and temples for the worship of foreign devotees.[1]

[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. x. p. 66.]

Seventy years later, when Mahindo arrived in Ceylon, the details of his reception disclose the increased magnificence of the capital, the richness of the royal parks, and the extent of the state establishments; and describe the chariots in which the king drove to Mihintala to welcome his exalted guest.[1]

[Footnote 1: Ibid., ch. xiv., xv., xx.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 302.]

Yet these were but preliminary to the grander constructions which gave the city its lasting renown; stupendous dagobas raised by successive monarchs, each eager to surpass the conceptions of his predecessors; temples in which were deposited statues of gold adorned with gems and native pearls; the decorated terraces of the Bo-tree, and the Brazen Palace, with its thousand chambers and its richly embellished halls. The city was enclosed by a rampart upwards of twenty feet in height[1], which was afterwards replaced by a wall[2]; and, so late as the fourth century, the Chinese traveller Fa Hian describes the condition of the place in terms which fully corroborate the accounts of the _Mahawanso_. It was crowded, he says, with nobles, magistrates, and foreign merchants; the houses were handsome, and the public buildings richly adorned. The streets and highways were broad and level, and halls for preaching and reading _bana_ were erected in all the thoroughfares. He was assured that the island contained not less than from fifty to sixty thousand ecclesiastics, who all ate in common; and of whom from five to six thousand were supported by the bounty of the king.

[Footnote 1: By WASABHA, A.D. 66. _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxv. p. 222.]

[Footnote 2: TURNOUR, in his _Epitome of the History of Ceylon_, says that Anarajapoora was enclosed by a rampart seven cubits high, B.C. 41, and that A.D. 66 King Wasabha built a wall round the city sixteen gows in circumference. As he estimates the gow at four English miles, this would give an area equal to about 300 square miles. A space so prodigious for the capital seems to be disproportionate to the extent of the kingdom, and far too extended for the wants of the population. TURNOUR does not furnish the authority on which he gives the dimensions, nor have I been able to discover it in the _Rajavali_ nor in the _Rajaratnacari_. The _Mahawanso_ alludes to the fact of Anarajapoora having been fortified by Wasabha, but, instead of a wall, the work which it describes this king to have undertaken, was the raising of the height of the rampart from seven cubits to eighteen (_Mahawanso_, ch. xxxv. p. 222). Major Forbes, in his account of the ruins of the ancient city, repeats the story of their former extent, in which he no doubt considered that the high authority of Turnour in matters of antiquity was sustained by a statement made by Lieutenant Skinner, who had surveyed the ruins in 1822, to the effect that he had discovered near Alia-parte the remains of masonry, which he concluded to be a portion of the ancient city wall running north and south and forming the west face; and, as Alia-parte is seven miles from Anarajapoora, he regarded this discovery as confirming the account given of its original dimensions. Lieutenant, now Major, Skinner has recently informed me that, on mature reflection, he has reason to fear that his first inference was precipitate. In a letter of the 8th of May, 1856, he says:--"It was in 1833 I first visited Anarajapoora, when I made my survey of its ruins. The supposed foundation of the western face of the city wall was pointed out near the village of Alia-parte by the people, and I hastily adopted it. I had not at the time leisure to follow up this search and determine how far it extended, but from subsequent visits to the place I have been led to doubt the accuracy of this tradition, though on most other points I found the natives tolerably accurate in their knowledge of the history of the ancient capital. I have since sought for traces of the other faces of the supposed wall, at the distances from the centre of the city at which it was said to have existed, but without success." The ruins which Major Skinner saw at Alia-parte are most probably those of one of the numerous forts which the Singhalese kings erected at a much later period, to keep the Malabars in check.]

The sacred tooth of Buddha was publicly exposed on sacred days in the capital with gorgeous ceremonies, which he recounts, and thence carried in procession to "the mountains without fear;" the road to which was perfumed and decked with flowers for the occasion; and the festival was concluded by a dramatic representation of events in the life of Buddha, illustrated by scenery and costumes, with figures of elephants and stags, so delicately coloured as to be undistinguishable from nature.[1]

[Footnote 1: FA HIAN, _Fo[)e] Kou[)e] Ki_, ch. xxxviii. p. 334, &c.]

CHAP. IX.

KINGS OF THE "LOWER DYNASTY."

[Sidenote: A.D. 302.]

The story of the kings of Ceylon of the _Sulu-wanse_ or "lower line," is but a narrative of the decline of the power and prosperity which had been matured under the Bengal conquerors and of the rise of the Malabar marauders, whose ceaseless forays and incursions eventually reduced authority to feebleness and the island to desolation. The vapid biography of the royal imbeciles who filled the throne from the third to the thirteenth century scarcely embodies an incident of sufficient interest to diversify the monotonous repetition of temples founded and dagobas repaired, of tanks constructed and priests endowed with lands reclaimed and fertilised by the "forced labour" of the subjugated races. Civil dissensions, religious schisms, royal intrigues and assassinations contributed equally with foreign invasions to diminish the influence of the monarchy and exhaust the strength of the kingdom.

Of sixty-two sovereigns who reigned from the death of Maha-Sen, A.D. 301, to the accession of Prakrama Bahu, A.D. 1153, nine met a violent death at the hands of their relatives or subjects, two ended their days in exile, one was slain by the Malabars, and four committed suicide. Of the lives of the larger number the Buddhist historians fail to furnish any important incidents; they relate merely the merit which each acquired by his liberality to the national religion or the more substantial benefits conferred on the people by the formation of lakes for irrigation.

[Sidenote: A.D. 330.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 339.]

Unembarrassed by any questions of external policy or foreign expeditions, and limited to a narrow range of internal administration, a few of the early kings addressed themselves to intellectual pursuits. One immortalised himself in the estimation of the devout by his skill in painting and sculpture, and in carving in ivory, arts which he displayed by modelling statues of Buddha, and which he employed himself in teaching to his subjects.[1] Another was equally renowned as a medical author and a practitioner of surgery[2], and a third was so passionately attached to poetry that in despair for the death of Kalidas[3], he flung himself into the flames of the poet's funeral pile.

[Footnote 1: Detoo Tissa, A.D. 330, _Mahawanso_, xxxvii. p. 242.]

[Footnote 2: Budha Daasa, A.D. 339. _Mahawanso_, xxxvii, p. 243. His work on medicine, entitled _Sara-sangraha_ or _Sarat-tha-Sambo_, is still extant, and native practitioners profess to consult it.--TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 27.]

[Footnote 3: Not KALIDAS, the author of _Sacontala_, to whom Sir W. Jones awards the title of "The Shakspeare of the East," but PANDITA KALIDAS, a Singhalese poet, none of whose verses have been preserved. His royal patron was Kumara Das, king of Ceylon, A.D. 513. For an account of Kalidas, see DE ALWIS'S _Sidath Sangara_, p. cliv.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 400.]

With the exception of the embassy sent from Ceylon to Rome in the reign of the Emperor Claudius[1], the earliest diplomatic intercourse with foreigners of which a record exists, occurred in the fourth or fifth centuries, when the Singhalese appear to have sent ambassadors to the Emperor Julian[2], and for the first time to have established a friendly connection with China. It is strange, considering the religious sympathies which united the two people, that the native chronicles make no mention of the latter negotiations or their results, so that we learn of them only through Chinese historians. The _Encyclopoedia_ of MA-TOUAN-LIN, written at the close of the thirteenth century[3], records that Ceylon first entered into political relations with China in the fourth century.[4] It was about the year 400 A.D., says the author, "in the reign of the Emperor Nyan-ti, that ambassadors arrived from Ceylon bearing a statue of Fo in jade-stone four feet two inches high, painted in five colours, and of such singular beauty that one would have almost doubted its being a work of human ingenuity. It was placed in the Buddhist temple at Kien-Kang (Nankin)." In the year 428 A.D., the King of Ceylon (Maha Nama) sent envoys to offer tribute, and this homage was repeated between that period and A.D. 529, by three other Singhalese kings, whose names it is difficult to identify with their Chinese designations of Kia-oe, Kia-lo, and the Ho-li-ye.

[Footnote 1: PLINY, lib. vi. c. 24.]

[Footnote 2: AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS, lib. XX. c. 7.]

[Footnote 3: KLAPROTH doubts, "si la science de l'Europe a produit jusqu'à présent un ouvrage de ce genre aussi bien exécuté et capable de soutenir la comparaison avec cette encyclopédie chinoise."--_Journ. Asiat._ tom. xxi. p. 3. See also _Asiatic Journal_, London, 1832, xxxv. p. 110. It has been often reprinted in 100 large volumes. M. STANISLAS JULIEN says that in another Chinese work, _Pien-i-tien_, or _The History of Foreign Nations_, there is a compilation including every passage in which Chinese authors have written of Ceylon, which occupies about forty pages 4to. _Ib_. tom. xxix. p. 39. A number of these authorities will be found extracted in the chapter in which I have described the intercourse between China and Ceylon, Vol. I. P. v. ch. iii.]

[Footnote 4: Between the years 317 and 420 A.D.--_Journ. Asiat._ tom. xxviii. p. 401.]

In A.D. 670, another ambassador arrived from Ceylon, and A.D. 742, Chi-lo-mi-kia sent presents to the Emperor of China consisting of pearls (_perles de feu_), golden flowers, precious stones, ivory, and pieces of fine cotton cloth. At a later period mutual intercourse became frequent between the two countries, and some of the Chinese travellers who resorted to Ceylon have left valuable records as to the state of the island.

[Sidenote: A.D. 413.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 432.]

It was during the reign of Maha Nama, about the year 413 A.D., that Ceylon was visited by Fa Hian, and the statements of the _Mahawanso_ are curiously corroborated by the observations recorded by this Chinese traveller. He describes accurately the geniality of the climate, whose uniform temperature rendered the seasons undistinguishable. Winter and summer, he says, are alike unknown, but perpetual verdure realises the idea of a perennial spring, and periods for seed time and harvest are regulated by the taste of the husbandman. This statement has reference to the multitude of tanks which rendered agriculture independent of the periodical rains.

[Sidenote: A.D. 459.]

Fa Hian speaks of the lofty monuments which were the memorials of Buddha, and of the gems and gold which adorned his statues at Anarajapoora. Amongst the most surprising of these was a figure in what he calls "blue jasper," inlaid with jewels and other precious materials, and holding in one hand a pearl of inestimable value.[1] He describes the Bo-tree in terms which might almost be applied to its actual condition at the present day, and he states that they had recently erected a building to contain "the tooth of Buddha," which was exhibited to the pious in the middle of the third moon with processions and ceremonies which he minutely details.[2] All this corresponds closely with the narrative of the _Mahawanso_. The sacred tooth of Buddha, called at that time _Dáthá dhátu_, and now the _Dalada_, had been brought to Ceylon a short time before Fa Hian's arrival in the reign of Kisti-Sri-Megha-warna, A.D. 311, in charge of a princess of Kalinga, who concealed it in the folds of her hair. And the _Mahawanso_ with equal precision describes the procession as conducted by the king and by the assembled priests, in which the tooth was borne along the streets of Anarajapoora amidst the veneration of the multitude.[3]

[Footnote 1: It was whilst looking at this statue that FA HIAN encountered an incident which he has related with touching simplicity:--"Depuis que FA HIAN avait quitté la _terre de Han_, plusieurs années s'étaient écoulées; les gens avec lesquels il avait des rapports étaient tous des hommes de contrées étrangères. Les montagnes, les rivières, les herbes, les arbres, tout ce qui avait frappé ses yeux était nouveau pour lui. De plus, ceux qui avaient fait route avec lui, s'en étaient séparés, les uns s'étant arrêtés, et les autres étant morts. En réfléchissant au passé, son coeur était toujours rempli de pensées et de tristesse. Tout à coup, à cóté de cette figure de jaspe, il vit un marchand qui faisait hommage à la statue d'un éventail de taffetas blanc du pays de _Tsin_. Sans qu'en s'en aperçût cela lui causa une émotion telle que ses larmes coulèrent et remplirent ses yeux." (FA HIAN, _Fo[)e] Kou[)e] Ki_, ch. xxxviii. p. 333.) "Tsin" means the province of Chensi, which was the birthplace of Fa Hian.]

[Footnote 2: FA HIAN, _Fo[)e] Kou[)e] Ki_, ch. xxxviii. p. 334-5.]