Part 14 (1/2)
The missus is romping round getting your beds aired and pinning up curtains in your honour!”
[Ill.u.s.tration: RUANVELI DAGOBA AT THE ”BURIED CITY.”]
CHAPTER XVI
A SACRED TREE
Do you remember that just about this time last week we were crouching in a hole in a muddy bank waiting for the thunderstorm to pa.s.s on? How different now, though we are still in Ceylon and, as crow flies, not so many miles from the Hunters' mountain-side. It is a gorgeous tropical afternoon, the bits of sky we can see through the feathery-leaved trees are of the deepest blue, and we are resting, because it seems too hot to move a limb. In front of us there stretches a sheet of limpid water which might be a lake except that it is surrounded by a raised bund, or bank, artificially made, with hewn granite slabs as steps going down at one end. We are glad of the shade of the trees falling across the short turfy gra.s.s, and we are seated on some broken blocks of granite, keeping a sharp look out for snakes. They will hardly be likely to trouble us here, but in that jungly bit behind it wouldn't be at all safe to rest like this. Even to sit on the short gra.s.s might be unpleasant, as there are all sorts of unknown insects here which bite and sting and stab, but we are safely raised on stones and are wearing thick boots. Examine that slab of granite there beside you; do you see that it has a most wonderfully carved snake upon it--a cobra with seven heads? It is so clear-cut it might have been done yesterday, yet it is part of the ruins of a mighty city, a city as large as London, which once stretched its busy streets over this quiet glade. The cobra was a sacred beast to the Hindus, and a seven-headed one was peculiarly so, seven being a mystic number.
What a glorious b.u.t.terfly! Its body is as big as a small bird, and its great velvety wings are the sharpest black and white. No, I don't for a moment suppose you'll catch it, so it is no use getting hot! I'm glad you can't, for we have no proper apparatus here, and it would only be a crushed ma.s.s to take home. Don't go headlong into the tank, though, in your frantic efforts; it might be awkward. No, I don't think there are any crocodiles, only a few sacred tortoises perhaps. Look! there is a tiny one--that small yellow thing that is walking away with the melancholy dignity of a retired general. Pick it up if you like certainly, see it wag its head and legs helplessly. I wish we could take it home. As you replace it, it continues its grave walk in the same direction as if it had never been rudely interrupted. At that instant a hare darts across an open glade and disappears in the thick undergrowth.
What a country! aesop's Fables in real life, where hares and tortoises live together!
”Was this city here at the same time as Rameses II. was living?”
No. Egypt was past its best days before this city, which was called Anuradhapura (Anaraj.a.pura), was built, and you must remember Rameses II.
was by no means one of the earliest kings of Egypt, he came quite late on in his country's history. His date was about thirteen hundred years before Christ, and it must have been about eight hundred years after that, though still you notice, 500 B.C., that this city was founded by some Cingalese who are supposed to have come over from India. That makes it between two thousand and three thousand years old, which we should think ancient enough if we hadn't visited Egypt first. Anuradhapura flourished for centuries as the capital of the Cingalese kings, who often carried on savage battles with the Tamils when they came over from India also.
Turn round now and examine that hill you wanted to climb a little while ago and tell me if you can see anything peculiar about it. No, I don't mean that large grey monkey who has just peeped at us in an impudent way and then swung himself into hiding, though I admit he is very interesting. I mean something odd about the hill itself. It is covered with trees and jungle scrub certainly, as any ordinary hill might be, but it is oddly steep and the sides rise very sharply from the ground.
It is an even shape too, more like an inverted bowl than a hill; or, better still, just try to imagine some giant cutting off the dome of St.
Paul's and setting it down here in the jungle, wouldn't it look something like that?
You don't quite agree, for you say that this has trees and bushes growing on it and St. Paul's dome would be bare. That is so, but if St.
Paul's dome had been left for many hundreds of years in a country where vegetation grows as fast as it does here, wouldn't it probably be grown over too?
Yes, I _do_ mean it. That isn't a hill at all, but a huge brick building called a dagoba, made by the same race of men who dug out this tank, and whose descendants to-day, with tortoise-sh.e.l.l combs in their hair, wait on us in the Colombo hotels.
[Ill.u.s.tration: LARGE GREY MONKEY.]
We will go back now to the place where we left that native cart and driver and we'll find a dagoba which has been stripped of its trees, so that we can see what it really looks like.
Hus.h.!.+ Do you hear that curious singing like a chant? Wait; there is a procession of pilgrims. They come swinging round the corner of the road in their picturesque flowing garments, and just at the turn they stop and kneel with their hands held palms together before their faces, and they bow repeatedly before marching on again. Let us go and find out what it was that stopped them. We soon come to it and find that it is the seated figure of a man with one hand falling over his knee and the other on his lap, while his legs are crossed tailor-wise. It is painted white and it is not very much larger than life. This is Buddha, of whom you heard in Kandy, and all over here, and in Burma, and in a less degree in India, you will find images of him set up to remind his followers of the precepts he left for them to follow.
Our driver is dead asleep under a tree, but we manage to wake him and soon we are rattling along a tree-shaded road in the queer little cart to Ruanveli, the best known of all the dagobas. When we arrive in full view of it we dismiss the driver and climb on to a slab of stone that is raised from the ground and tilted slightly like a table with two legs higher than the others. Here we can gaze upon this extraordinary monument which rises about one hundred and fifty feet into the air, and is about two and a half times as much across, just the shape of a pudding basin, you see. It is not a temple, not even a tomb, as the Pyramids are, but a solid block built of millions and millions of bricks with a tiny chamber inside containing an infinitely precious relic, nothing less than a few of Buddha's hairs. So they say! Only the priests were allowed to go into this sacred chamber, with the exception of one king, who had this priceless privilege granted to him. It is not very many years since mighty monuments were rediscovered, because the jungle had grown up all around them and no one knew even where Anuradhapura had stood; but now there are men who spend their whole time uncovering and preserving them, just as many men are working at the excavations in Egypt; and the trees and overgrowth have been stripped from Ruanveli, which stands forth sharp and clear-cut against this beautiful sky.
Men are very much alike all the world over! This great dagoba was put up by one of the Cingalese kings, Dutugemunu, to celebrate his great victory over the Tamils, just as Rameses II. put up the inimitable temple of Abu Simbel to celebrate his victory over the Syrians. Before Dutugemunu came to the throne the Tamils had usurped all power and made one of their own men, called Elala, king, and the young prince, exiled from his capital city, met them in battle outside the walls. He fought with great bravery, and in the end the issue of the day was decided by a single combat between him and Elala, both mounted on huge elephants.
That must have been a fight indeed! Dutugemunu killed Elala and regained the throne of his fathers, but he must have been a singularly enlightened prince for his age, for he not only buried his fallen foe with great honour but he gave orders that henceforth all music should cease when bands were marching past his tomb, and that royalties were to alight from their horses or palanquins and walk past on foot to do honour to the mighty dead. Even in the nineteenth century one of the princes from Kandy, who was flying from capture, obeyed the order and would not allow himself to be carried past the spot! So the memory of Elala and the great fight he made were kept alive as Dutugemunu had intended they should be.
On this very slab where we are now sitting it is said that Dutugemunu died. If not the actual stone, it is probably the spot. It was about 140 B.C., and when he knew he was dying he gave orders that he should be carried out here, that his fast failing eyes might look their last on the greatest monument of his reign. In the midst of his great city, with its fine buildings and the great tanks he had caused to be made to give the people water, he thought most of all of Ruanveli, partly because of the sacred relic enclosed, but partly also because he had done a wonderful thing in paying for all the labour that was used in its building, instead of forcing his subjects to work for nothing, as was the custom in his time.
There is much to examine in Ruanveli; we can see the casing of granite running up the sides, we can examine a statue of the king himself and many wonderful carvings; around the dagoba runs a magnificent granite platform wide enough for six elephants to walk abreast, as no doubt they did many times in the gay processions on festival days.
Behind the dagoba, not far off, is an immense lake, or tank, much larger than that we saw this morning. It was considered a peculiar work of merit for kings to make these tanks so that water could be stored up for the use of the people, and they are found all over Ceylon; there is one twenty miles in length!