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India in Primitive Christianity, by Arthur Lille, [1909], at sacred-texts.com
Hiouen Thsiang, the Chinese traveller, on the religion of the Island in his day—"Followers of the Great Vehicle"—Bishop Copleston combats this—Three hundred Great Vehicle monks at Kânchapura—Wytulian heresy—Kappooism—S’iva as Saman Deva Raja supreme in the Island—Dewales and Buddhist Viharas in the same enclosures—Cure of the sick officially handed over to the Kappooists—Sekkraia (S’iva as Indra) a man, half-man, half stone—S’ivan mystery—the "Inebriating Festival of the Buddha"—Legend—Temple women—Kattragam or Karttikeya—His power and popularity.
We have seen that a crowd of monks from Alexandria were feasted in Ceylon in the year 160 B.C. on the occasion of the opening up of the Great Tope at Ruanwelli. As these holy men were treated like orthodox Buddhist monks it would help us if we could know exactly what was Cingalese Buddhism at this particular time, for Ceylon had plainly much to do with the passage of Gnosticism from India to the West.
On this point we have evidence of quite exceptional importance from the Chinese traveller, Hiouen Thsiang. It is quite plain from him that what we call S’iva-Buddhism was the religion of the island.
Bishop Copleston, in his work "Buddhism," combats this, and he begins with as, it seems to me, a slight mistake. He says that Hiouen Thsiang "describes a school of Mahayana existing as far south as Ceylon." * This is not at all what the Chinese traveller says.
[paragraph continues] "In Ceylon," he declares, "are about ten thousand monks who follow the doctrines of the Great Vehicle"; and the context shows that he believed that the change had affected the whole island.
And why should all the testimony of Hiouen Tsiang be at once "set aside," as the Bishop phrases it. Hiouen Thsiang was a sort of Lord High Commissioner, selected by the Head of the Buddhist Church to conduct the great convocation of King Śîlâditya, which was summoned especially to consider the dispute between the disciples of the Great Vehicle (Mahayana), and the disciples of the "Little Vehicle."
The Chinese traveller says, moreover, that the controversy raged fiercely for a time before the Great Vehicle was successful over the Little Vehicle. He tells us that one of the Chief Apostles of the Great Vehicle was Devi Bodhisatwa, a Cingalese. He announces that the early Buddhists called the Great Vehicle the "Carriage that drives to Nothingness," and that it came from the followers of S’iva and not Buddha at all.
At Kânchapura, the Chinese pilgrim came upon three hundred monks who had just fled across the water from Ceylon to escape the anarchy and famine consequent on the death of the king there. This stopped his visit. The Bishop "sets him aside" because he never reached the Island at all, * but supposing that Dr. Pusey was visiting the Isle of Man to see if "Church" ideas had reached the clergy of that island; and supposing that the steamer were wrecked but the passengers rescued by another steamer, coming from the Isle of Man, and having on board thirty clergymen hastening to an Anglican conference, surely these clergymen could tell him quite as much about the religion of the Island as he could acquire by an actual visit.
In point of fact, history supports the Chinese traveller. The Râjaratunacari announces that a great heresy arose with the advent of one Wytulia. What it was is a little vague, but it "sought to subvert by craft and intrigue the religion of Buddha." It was put down summarily. The books of the Wytulians were burned. But by-and-bye a fresh heretic arose in the person of one Sanghamitta, who was profoundly versed in the religion of the Bhûtas (demons).
"It is probable," says Sir Emerson Tennant, "that out of the Wytulian heresy grew the system which prevails to the present day by which the heterodox Dewales and halls for devil dancing 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." *
What was the devil dancing? A very able work will help us here. In the year 1829 Mr. Edward Upham published a work on "Kappooism," or the Demon Worship of the Island. It is enriched with forty-three plates, crude, untouched, fresh from a Cingalese bazaar, and therefore most valuable. They are from a collection brought home by Sir Alexander Johnson, a Ceylon Chief Justice.
Mr. Upham, with his plates, gives us a very good idea of the "Kappooism" or the "devil worship" of Ceylon. He was astonished when reading the work of Mr. Hodgson "to find how close was the resemblance in the matter of the metempsychosis, the heavens, and the divine agencies" between the Buddhism of Ceylon which is generally pronounced the Hînayâna or Little Vehicle, and the Buddhism of Nepal, which we call S’iva-Buddhism.
Let us inquire first who is deemed the Supreme God? or to put it in the language of the country,
what Deity possesses the mighty "Stone of Supremacy," the Minne Phalange? As the accounts are very contradictory, we must see if the legends and the plates can throw any light upon it.
There was a Serpent King, Samana Deva Râja, Lord of Hell, who lived in a palace called Nangewenodenneye. This Serpent King sent an invitation to Buddha, who came to his palace through the air, and by a miracle created a darkness so thick that all the "nâgas" subject to this sovereign fled in consternation. This allowed Buddha to occupy the Minne Phalange or Seat of Supremacy; and fire issued from the four points of the compass which frightened the "devils," as Mr. Upham calls them, still more. But Buddha released them from hell, preached to them and comforted them, and handed over to them the wood called Jak-girre for their abode. *
Two points are prominent. The legend is intended to give an account of the religion of Buddha superseding that of Samana Deva Râja, or S’iva with his Nâgas. Buddha, by his superior miracles, takes from him the Minne Phalange; and transfers his crew from hell to a pleasant wood, Jak-girre, miraculously erected. It is called an island in the Mahâwanso.
A second legend announces that Buddha at his death handed over the Minne Phalange to Deva Râja. I do not see that this can mean anything except the advent of S’iva Buddhism, with the date purposely mis-stated (p. 130). Deva Rajah is S’iva, and S’iva now rules once more. †
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PLATE 20.
SEKKRAIA SINKING INTO THE STONE.
But there is a third claimant for the "Stone of Supremacy," Sekkraia (Sanskrit—Śakra or Indra).
To those who have not studied S’ivism, this claim gives rise to many contradictions apparently purposeless. But S’ivism being a rigid Pantheism, its god has two faces, that of the god of what men call "evil," as well as the god of what men call good.
Though the name Sekkraia and some of the facts concerning him indicate the god Indra (Plate 20), there is much more of S’iva in his composition.
Sekkraia has in the Devaloka a most wonderful tree, the Tavateinza Tree. Its stem is a pillar of silver. It flowers only once in a thousand years, and produces most delicious fruit. In order to get this fruit the gods assemble in crowds for a hundred years before it ripens, and for one whole year they dance and sing, accompanied by drums and other musical instruments. Having eaten of that fruit they become inebriated for four entire months. Immediately the tree has flowered, Sekkraia is informed of the fact, and he mounts the great Elephant Erravum to hurry to the festival.
"Erravum" is Indra's famous elephant, Airâvana, but the Stone of Supremacy is the lingam. On it Sekkraia stands when he administers justice: that is when he is S’iva as Yama. If the accused is guilty, the god sinks partly into the stone. It does not want Plate 20 to tell exactly what that means. Man, stone, and spire-shaped crown make up an unmistakeable Lingam.
The gods of Kappoism are worshipped in erections, chiefly rude, called Dewales (devalayas?), and Dr. Davy is cited by Mr. Upham as announcing "that it is not uncommon to see a Dewale and a Wihara (Buddhist Temple) contiguous, or under the same roof." * The Dewales have for presiding genius the
[paragraph continues] Goddess Pattinee. She is described as "the most mischievous fairy in Ceylon" (p. 50), and seems to correspond with Major Waddell's "She Devil Devî." Her likeness shows her to be Durgâ. Above her head as a crown is a head of S’iva without the upper jaw. A clergyman named Fox, wandering in a jungle at night with one native attendant, came accidentally across a scene of devil dancing. The native was wild with fear when he found that his master was going to try and probe such tremendous mysteries.
"We came at length to a temporary hut (which they call a maduwa) adorned in front with cocoa-nut leaves and about sixty lamps made of coarse clay. I saw shadows of men, but they disappeared; and on my approach I only saw the Kappooa dancing before the place, with hollow bangles on his arms filled with stones to make a jingle. Inside the maduwa was a sick man, near his feet was a wicker basket. This I lifted up. It contained a live cock smeared all over with soot. *
"The man who acts the part of the devil is dressed in a garment of dried grass or rushes which reaches to the ground. His arms and his feet are concealed, a white country cloth covers his shoulders. Round his head and under his chin are two or three cotton handkerchiefs. The face is frightful. The mouth and nose are black. Two large teeth project far beyond the lips. A row of coarse shells is bound over the eyes. On the head is a red cap which reaches four or five feet in height."
Now here we get the Buddhism of the North, as it is called, face to face with the Buddhism of the South. In the Tântrika Rites of Nepal, as Mr. Hodgson calls them, offerings of flesh and spirits and warm blood are made to the "Balis." A mummer
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PLATE 21.
BALI DEVIL-DANCER.
in a mask of Bhairava impersonates the god. Here also is a mummer impersonating the "Bali." The word "Bali" means literally a sacrifice, but in Nepal and also in Ceylon it is used to denote the sorcerers as well. The "devil" in Nepal is called Bhairava. In Ceylon he has two enormous teeth, and turning to Mr. Upham's plates I find that the demon so furnished (See Plate 21) is called Coola Kumara. Kumara is S’iva's son, and dancing before the altar a S’ivan rite.
All the Cingalese, including the Buddhist hierarchy, admit that above Buddha there is a superior God, Saman-deva-râja. This God, says Mr. Upham, is called Saman from Samane Galle (Adam's Peak), "where he is now living with his deities with power over Ceylon" (p. 51).
There he stands upon the Minne Phalange or Seat of Supremacy given to him at the death of Buddha. There grows the immortal Tavateinza Tree. Around him are myriads of "divine nâgas of mighty power," rendered orthodox formerly by Buddha, and he has moreover the sacred White Elephant which is Buddha reincarnate.
These "devas" watch to cure the sick and to preserve men from incurring losses in their goods, and are represented as residing on the peaks of their high mountains whence they inspect, govern and exercise a tutelary superintendence over their favourite districts. The Buddhist Church make a virtue of necessity and officially adopt the devils, in the matter of the cure of disease. They say that Buddha gave that faculty to Kumara.
"The natives of Ceylon," says Mr. Upham, "show the demons honours and make offerings, because they fear that demons can visit human beings with sickness; and therefore they in cases of sickness invoke them and make offerings of money, also of boiled and unboiled meats, and cause the throat, arms,
legs and body of the sick to be tied by the Bali conjurers with necklaces or threads (amulets) dyed yellow with saffron water" (p. 66).
It must be remembered, too, that Bhairava judges the dead and consigns some to the jewelled palaces of his Kailâs, and others to regions which, as depicted in Mr. Upham's book, show red demons beating sinners with red-hot clubs and hammers, as they lie in beds of flame. All this scarcely describes a few belated Nâgas beating tom-toms and selling gambouge amulets in sly corners. If the Buddhists of Ceylon turn to S’iva and his Devas in business, in sickness, in affliction—if they use him to direct their happiness on earth and their hope in the hereafter—there is little wonder that the altars of the Devalayas are thronged, and those of the Buddhists are deserted.
And now let us pause and take stock of what we have discovered in the Island of Ceylon. Simply that there, as in other Buddhist countries, the religion is the religion of S’iva-Buddha. S’iva is the acknowledged divine Ruler. The foul rites of the Vâmâcharîs, the left-handed Tântrikas, are the only rites that any of the Cingalese seem to care anything about.
Now there are two explanations of all this, the one furnished by Hiouen Tsiang, the Chinese Buddhist, namely that the Great Vehicle (or S’iva Buddhism) effected a complete revolution in the religion of S’âkya Muni in Ceylon about the epoch of the Christian era. The second is that the religion of Ceylon is the pure and unadulterated religion of S’âkya Muni, but as popular superstitions are difficult to completely eradicate some of the old Nâgas, or Serpent Worshippers, who were supreme in the island before its conversion by Buddha, still perform on the sly some of their ancient rites.
In fact, once more upsprings the Barnacle theory, the Nâgas are mere barnacles quite outside the ship.
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PLATE 22.
SESH DISGUISED AS BUDDHA.
But are they outside the ship? Plainly one of the barnacles has taken command of it. Bishop Copleston notices the "Wytulian heretics," and their attempt to mix up Buddhism and the religions of the South of India. And he tries to account for this heresy:—
From early times hordes of Hindus have fled to the island from their oppressors. Also the native kings have sought their brides in India, and selected Tamil soldiers for their body-guard. And in point of fact the civilisation of Ceylon itself was due to India. But with all due respect to the learned Bishop I think he scarcely appreciates the puzzle. It is not whether individuals on the Island of Ceylon in the old days had, or had not, opportunities of studying other religions besides the official creed. The puzzle is that a powerful hierarchy, for according to the French Bishop Bigandet, Ceylon had a hierarchy as effectively organised, and very like that of the Christians; the puzzle is that this hierarchy should have allowed their beatified Saint to be pushed off his pedestal, and a novel god to be placed there, and that god to be worshipped with human sacrifices, cannibalism, and Bacchanalian orgies, the very rites that S’âkya Muni had spent eighty years in trying to eradicate.
Such a vast change must have come from above, not below. Hierarchies are accustomed to turn a deaf ear to the reasonings of individuals. At Nalanda, near Buddha Gaya, was the Achârya, the acknowledged pope of the Buddhists—the Mahâwanso calls him the "High Priest of all the world." Now the invaluable Hiouen Tsiang gives us a hint of what might have occurred. He says that Kanis’ka wanted to adopt high-handed measures with his convocation or council, and force this high priest to let it sit at Nalanda, though that prelate and his ten thousand monks were strongly opposed to the proposed changes. But
[paragraph continues] Parsvika, the prime minister, suggested caution and urged that it was safer to hold the convocation in his own dominions.
"Many conflicting opinions will be expressed, and we shall not have time to answer and refute them. The whole convocation is attached to this kingdom. Why compose S’âstras? Your realms are defended on all sides by high mountains under the guardianship of Yakshas." *
Is it stretching a point to say that the high-handed monarch, although he yielded on this occasion, still exerted a pressure which was by-and-bye successful?
In point of fact, the religion of Ceylon is a vast cosmical amalgamation. A and B, let us say, are carrying C in a rickshaw. A has been a shining Deva in Tavateinza, wearing a golden crown shaped like the pinnacle of a temple, but his Karma being exhausted and his moral nature deteriorated, he has come to earth as a punishment. B was a banker in one of the stars that whirls round a distant sun in the Milky Way, only just discernible with the largest telescope at Greenwich. But certain faults in his accounts have brought him likewise to the Karma of carrying heavy people about in rickshaws. C in his last rebirth was in hell, and was beaten by red demons with heavy clubs, but he bowed to the Chaitya, or Lingam, several thousand times, and the Karma of this good action makes him now an elegant young prince receiving the saalam of the crowd as he passes along. There is no death, only change. The Kosmos is a vast penitentiary. Buddha, it is said, was once a Yaksha, a foul corpse-eating ghoul. And as Mr. Upham tells us, he was once Sekkraia, the God Indra, and he "ruled the Tavateinza heavens with thirty-two Nat-devas as his Counsellors." † Then again he was
plainly Yama-râjah, the Lord of Hell, in the splendid parable of the plague-stricken pig. In fact, in Ceylon, as elsewhere, S’ivism deals very cavalierly with Indian gods. S’iva in one legend knocked off one of Brahma's four heads; and in the life of Buddha, Brahmâ, with a funny parasol, is made into a comic character, during Buddha's great struggle with Mara the tempter.
"Maha Brahmâ offers flowers to the cloth that cleans my feet." * Dr. Rhys Davids tells us that Buddha had been six times on the earth as Brahma, and the Tibetans have "Buddha devils" in their hells. In point of fact, the lines that mark off hell from heaven, and a corpse-eating Yaksha from a bright Deva with a golden crown have been a little obliterated by time. Saman Deva Râjah, although he is Bhairava, or what we call "evil" in the divine economy, sits in a palace at times in the Tavateinza Heavens amongst the elect, and Sekkraia, who is Nature in her most benign aspects, has to put on the mask of Yama-râjah, the Lord of Hell, and judge the dead.
But we now come to a graver question. What is the "Inebriating Festival of the Buddha?" (p. 56). Mr. Upham himself is aghast at this question, and although he knows nothing of our S’iva-Buddha theories, visions of foul Bacchantic mysteries in Babylon and Eleusis float before his eyes.
Indians prefer fables to Athanasian Creeds for religious instruction. The story runs that Deva Râjah, the Lord of Hell, cast his eyes on a man of renowned probity named Mâga, and was astounded to note that this man with thirty-two followers was constantly levelling the roads for the Great Buddha, Dipankara, to pass—an infallible token that he was about to become the new Buddha himself. To frustrate this the demon hatched an infamous plot. He
invited him to the initiatory Bacchantic Festival, that afterwards got to be called the "Inebriating Festival of the Buddha." A "Japani" (some mess of rice) was prepared, steeped in the juice of the inebriating tree. Mâga, who was S’âkya Muni, came with his thirty-two followers, but scenting the deceit, only made a pretence of eating, and made Deva Rajah and his followers blind drunk. He then drove him and his Yakshas out of hell. Here we have, without doubt, Buddha's descent into Hell, an experience which was a prominent point of all the old Bacchantic Mysteries. It is added that Buddha being compassionate, caused a floating island called Jak Girri to come, and upon that he installed the Yakshas. *
I will show later on from five bas reliefs of the Amarâvatî Tope now at the British Museum, that this story must have been much valued in the Buddhist Kingdoms in touch with Nalanda. And Mr. Upham shows plainly that Tappooism, even when supervised by English or Dutch magistrates, had pregnant secrets. Why did Mr. Fox's native attendant show such fear when his master proposed to approach the Devil dancers? Why did those gruesome ghosts fade away into the enshrouding night?
At Galle, in December, 1817, Kali Singar-Karegay Gerrensoe, a tom-tom beater, was examined by a sort of commission then sitting. These are some of his answers:—
Q.—Who are the people that sing and prepare the Bali?
A.—There are only two castes—Berewaya and Olia.
Q.—Who are the people who dance the devil's dances?
A.—I am not able to tell, as the Kappoerales will know it. (This answer Mr. Upham properly prints in italics.)
Q.—What are the four deities—who act as priests to the four deities—and who worship the four deities?
A.—This also I am unable to say, but the Kappoerales will know it.
Q.—For what sickness, or what reasons, are the devil dances?
A.—The Kappoerales are the people who make them.
Q.—Do they dance the devil-dances for the same purposes as they make the Bali?
A.—This also the Kappoerales will know.
All this points to vows of secrecy and gruesome rites. And Mr. Upham's drawings, selected at hazard, show that the goddess Pattinee and her corpse-eating subordinates were as fond of human blood in Ceylon as they were on the other side of Adam's Bridge, and also in Alexandria. Thus the "Giant Rirey" (Plate 40 in Upham's Book) has a woman's head in one hand and a knife in the other. Whilst the "Demon Ammoosihon" seems to prefer entrails, as he is depicted tearing them from a human victim.
The Rev. John Colloway gives us a translation of a Cingalese masque. It is a very different affair from the outspoken "Body of the Dead Year" in Tibet, but in the presence of Dutch and English magistrates a poet had to be cautious. The grotesque masks seem much the same in the Kolan Nattanawa, the Cingalese masque, as those who figured on the Tibetan stage, being chiefly versions of S’iva and Durgâ. And there is absolutely no plot to the drama: the characters come on one by one and describe their masks. But one point struck me. A bevy of handsome women, nearly naked, support each other in the air and make up a pyramid, the apex being crowned with a "cup." The native poet says frankly that all this is intended to excite the animal passions of "gallants." * Now the Tibetan mystery gives the
cannibalism of the known S’ivan rites and the "Inebriating Festival of the Buddha" gives the drunkenness. The Ceylon masque certainly adds the third ingredient, the erotic stimulant. I have more to say about the pyramid of women in the next chapter.
And even in Ceylon there are hints of human sacrifices. Images of human beings in rice are used in Ceylon mysteries. This fact, of course, like the dough images of Tibet, points to repressed cannibalism.
And Spence Hardy writes thus:—
"Europeans are not allowed to enter the dewâles, and it is difficult to ascertain the exact nature of the rites therein performed." *
That difficulty might have been overcome if the writer had studied the religion of S’iva as clearly as he shows in his admirable work that he has studied the religion of Buddha. The Devalayas are temples of Deva or S’iva, and on the other side of Adam's Bridge the missionaries could have shown him plenty of them, and told him gruesome secrets. Material for S’ri's sensuous "Chakra" would be ready in plenty in these Temples in the shape of the "Servants of the God" the "Brides of the God." Miss Wilson Carmichæl, a missionary lady, gives a pathetic picture of a sweet little Hindu child that she knew, very affectionate and prettily petulant. She sang to her one day some Christian verses, and the little lady with a pout replied in the Indian sing-song manner with an Indian psalm, declaring that she liked hers best, as her religion had been in existence hundreds of years before that of Miss Wilson Carmichæl. Two days afterwards she saw the child in the hands of two grave men, "dignified, educated men." What were they doing to her?
The men laughed. "We are taking her to the Temple, there to marry her to the god."
"The child had one hand free," says Miss Carmichæl. "She waved it to me and smiled, and then the dark trees hid her from me." *
The little thing had joined the bands of temple women who dance and sing in the processions and feasts. Some are carried off like this, even when they are five years old. A phrase used in the south shows how difficult it is to get clear of S’iva symbolism. These Brides of the God are said to be "tied to the Stone."
In Tibet, women see nothing immoral unless the offending party is a married woman. Polyandry still exists there. "In Ceylon," says Sir Emerson Tennant, "the lower classes exhibit a licentiousness so shocking and practices so inconceivably vile as would scarcely obtain credence."
We learn also from him that polyandry is winked at by the Buddhist priests. †
Apropos of human sacrifices. Mr. M. Conway gives a story from Ceylon which is very instructive. There was a Cingalese King whose wife had several miscarriages. The King consulted the Kappooists, and they told him that a demon named Bahirawa lived in a mountain near Kandi, and that she could never have a son unless she sacrificed a "virgin" to this demon once a year. This was done until the Queen was an old woman. Then the sacrifice was stopped, but so many diseases fell upon the royal family that the sinister remedy was renewed until the arrival of the British in Kandi in 1815. ‡ If all this was done openly as late as that, what may have been done and may be doing even now in secret?
Sir Emerson Tennant affirms that for magical purposes children were slaughtered when he was in
the island. In 1849, a case came before him of a sorcerer who was accustomed to cut off the heads of young children. The little skull was scraped, and denuded of the flesh, and cabalistic figures were drawn upon it, and the name of a person whose death was desired was inserted on it. Then it was taken to a graveyard, and for forty nights the evil spirits were invoked to destroy the proposed victim. *
These skulls the "Tamil Doctor" obtained, sometimes by murder, at others by the baby farming of his wife. The man got away, but left behind him a book containing various charms and invocations, all addressed to "S’iva the Destroyer," suitable for every imaginable purpose.
The festival of the "Perahar" described by the sailor Knox, shows how completely the religion of S’iva reigned in his day supreme in the Island. † A branch of a tree covered with flowers was the chief object of worship (S’iva as the Tavateinza tree). This paraded the streets on a magnificent elephant, with many drums and trumpets; and S’iva's son, Cottaragom (Kattragam or Karttikeya), and Potting Dio (Pattinee?) on other elephants shared the honours. Maskers as giants (the Yakshas are all gigantic), and about fifty elephants were in the procession. "Thousands of ladies and gentlemen" and "all the beauties of Zelone" (Ceylon) turned out. And it used to be a custom of the King and his Court to come. One king tried to stop the show and in the year 1664 there was no Perahar; but a rebellion in consequence promptly caused the monarch to restore it.
The three chief gods have each a separate pagoda. Knox tells us that the Cingalese worship as a chief
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PLATE 23.
DURGÂ AS A GIANTESS.
From Amarâvatî
god "Ossa polowa maupt dio (the Creator of Heaven and Earth)," and neglect "Buddou."
And modern travellers tell the same story. Professor Rhys Davids tells us that in the quadrangle of almost every Buddhist temple is a dewale—a shrine to the Devas.
And Spence Hardy and Sir Emerson Tennant tell us that in the Mahâ-Dewayo Wihara Durgâ as Pattinee, and Saman Deva Rajah (S’iva) with his son Kattragam (Karttikeya), have their statues in the temple itself. *
I conclude this chapter with a design very popular in Ceylon. Is this the model from which the Java of Mr. Crawfurd received its jawless S’iva?
245:* Copleston "Buddhism Primitive and Present," p. 11.
246:* Copleston, "Buddhism," p. 11.
247:* Sir Emerson Tennant, "Ceylon," Vol. I., p. 380.
248:* The legend is taken from the Mahâwanso where is an account of Sumano Devah Rajah and of Buddha frightening the Yakkos in the garden of the Great Serpent by making his "carpet of skin fringe" fling forth flames in all directions. See "Mahâwanso," Turnour's translation, p. 3.
248:† Deva means the Deva of Devas, S’iva (Benfey's "Sanskrit Dictionary").
249:* Upham "Hist. Buddhism," p. 130.
250:* Upham, "Hist. Buddhism." p. 121.
254:* "Memoires de Hiouen Tsiang," Vol. I., p. 194.
254:† Upham, "Buddhism," p. 62.
255:* Hardy's "Manual," p. 185.
256:* Upham "History of Buddhism," pp. 22, 59. See also "Asiatic Researches," vi. 207.
257:* Calloway, "Kolan Nattanowa," p. 46.
258:* Spence Hardy, "Eastern Monachism," p. 201.
259:* Amy Wilson Carmichael, "Things as they are," p. 218.
259:† Sir Emerson Tennant, "Ceylon," II., 428.
259:‡ M. Conway, "Demonology," Vol. I., pp. 260, 266.
260:* Sir E. Tennant, "Ceylon," II., 428.
260:† Knox, "Relation of Ceylon," p. 157.
261:* Spence Hardy, p. 203.
