Part 72 (1/2)

[Footnote 1: TURNOUR, _Mahawanso_, p. 12. The tank of Kalaweva was formed by Dhatu Sena, A.D. 459.--_Mahawanso_, ch. x.x.xviii. 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 ca.n.a.ls and all the appurtenances for irrigation. Originally these vast undertakings were completed ”for the benefit of the country,” and ”out of compa.s.sion 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 ca.n.a.ls, were appropriated to the maintenance of the local priesthood[3]; a tank and the thousands of acres which it fertilised were sometimes a.s.signed 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, x.x.xviii. p. 236).]

[Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch, x.x.xvii. p. 242.]

[Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_, ch. x.x.xiv. p. 210; x.x.xv. p. 221; x.x.xviii. p.

237, _Rajaratnacari_, ch. ii. p. 57, 59, 64, 69, 74.]

[Footnote 4: _Mahawanso_, ch. x.x.xv. p. 215, 218, 223; ch. x.x.xvii. p.

234; _Rajaratnacari_, ch. ii. p. 51. TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 21.]

[Footnote 5: _Mahawanso_, ch. x.x.xv. 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 Malwatte 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 circ.u.mference of half a yoyana (eight miles) for the maintenance of the temple.”[1]

[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. x.x.xiv, 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 Anaraj.a.poora.[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. x.x.xiv. 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 mult.i.tudes 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 abolis.h.i.+ng _raja-kariya_[1], has emanc.i.p.ated 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 Ruanwelle 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 Anaraj.a.poora in the fourth century, dwells with admiration and wonder on the perfumes and flowers lavished on their wors.h.i.+p 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. x.x.xiv.; _Rajaratnacari_, p. 52, 53.]

[Footnote 2: FA HIAN. _Foe Koue Ki_, ch. x.x.xviii. p. 335.]