ASTRONOMY, ETC.
EDUCATION.—The Brahmans, as they were the first to introduce the practice of the mechanical arts, were also the earliest instructors of youth in the rudiments of general knowledge. Pandukabhaya, who was afterwards king, was "educated in every accomplishment by Pandulo, a Brahman, who taught him along with his own son."[1] The Buddhist priests became afterwards the national instructors, and a passage in the Rajavali seems to imply that writing was regarded as one of the distinctive accomplishments of the priesthood, not often possessed by the laity, as it mentions that the brother of the king of Kalany, in the second century before Christ, had been taught to write by a tirunansi, "and made such progress that he could write as well as the tirunansi himself."[2] The story in the Rajavali of an intrigue which was discovered by "the sound of the fall of a letter," shows that the material then in use in the second century before Christ, was the same as at the present day, the prepared leaf of a palm tree.[3]
1: Mahawanso, ch. x. p. 60.
2: Rajavali, p. 189.
3: Ibid.
The most popular sovereigns were likewise the most sedulous patrons of learning. Prakrama I. founded schools at Pollanarrua[1]; and it is mentioned with due praise in the Rajaratnacari, that the King Wijayo Bahu III., who reigned at Dambeadinia, A.D. 1240, "established a school in every village, and charged the priests who superintended them to take nothing from the pupils, promising that he himself would reward them for their trouble."[2]
1: Mahawanso, ch. lxxii. UPHAM'S version, vol. i. p. 274.
2: Rajaratnacari, p. 99.
Amongst the propagators of a religion whose leading characteristics are its subtlety and thin abstractions, it may naturally be inferred that argument and casuistry held prominent place in the curriculum of instruction. In the story of Mahindo, and the conversion of the island to Buddhism, the following display of logical acumen is ostentatiously paraded as evidence of the highly cultivated intellect of the neophyte king.[1]
1: Mahawanso, ch. xiv. p. 79.
For the purpose of ascertaining the capacity of the gifted monarch, Mahindo thus interrogated him:—
"O king; what is this tree called?
"The Ambo.
"Besides this one, is there any other Ambo-tree?
"There are many.
"Besides this Ambo, and those other Ambo-trees, are there any other trees on the earth?
"Lord; there are many trees, but they are not Ambo-trees.
"Besides the other Ambo-trees, and the trees that are not Ambo, is there any other?
"Gracious Lord, this Ambo-tree.
"Ruler of men, thou art wise!
"Hast thou any relations, oh, king?
"Lord, I have many.
"King, are there any persons not thy relations?
"There are many who are not my relations.
"Besides thy relations, and those who are not thy relations, is there, or is there not, any other human being in existence?
"Lord, there is myself.
"Ruler of men, Sadhu! thou art wise."
The course of education suitable for a prince in the thirteenth century included what was technically termed the eighteen sciences: "1. oratory, 2. general knowledge, 3. grammar, 4. poetry, 5. languages, 6. astronomy, 7. the art of giving counsel, 8. the means of attaining nirwana[1], 9. the discrimination of good and evil, 10. shooting with the bow, 11. management of the elephant, 12. penetration of thoughts, 13. discernment of invisible beings, 14. etymology, 15. history, 16. law, 17. rhetoric, 18. physic."[2]
1: "Nirwana" is the state of suspended sensation, which constitutes the eternal bliss of the Buddhist in a future state.
2: Rajaratnacari p. 100.
Astronomy.—Although the Singhalese derived from the Hindus their acquaintance, such as it was, with the heavenly bodies and their movements, together with their method of taking observations, and calculating eclipses[1], yet in this list the term "astrology" would describe better than "astronomy" the science practically cultivated in Ceylon, which then, as now, had its professors in every village to construct horoscopes, and cast the nativities of the peasantry. Dutugaimunu, in the second century before Christ, after his victory over Elala, commended himself to his new subjects by his fatherly care in providing "a doctor, an astronomer, and a priest, for each group of sixteen villages throughout the kingdom;"[2] and he availed himself of the services of the astrologer to name the proper day of the moon on which to lay the foundation of his great religious structures.[3]
1: A summary of the knowledge possessed by the early Hindus of astronomy and mathematical science will be found in MOUNTSTUART ELPHINSTONE'S History of India during the Hindu and Mahomedan Periods, book iii. ch. i. p. 127.
2: Rajaratnacari p. 40.
3: Mahawanso, ch. xxix. p. 169-173.
King Bujas Raja, A.D. 339, increased his claim to popular acknowledgment by adding "an astrologer, a devil-dancer, and a preacher."[1] At the present day the astronomical treatises possessed by the Singhalese are, generally speaking, borrowed, but with considerable variation, from the Sanskrit.[2]
1: TURNOUR'S Epitome, p. 27.
2: HARDY'S Buddhism, ch. i. p. 22.
Medicine.—Another branch of royal education was medicine. The Singhalese, from their intercourse with the Hindus, had ample opportunities for acquiring a knowledge of this art, which was practised in India before it was known either in Persia or Arabia; and there is reason to believe that the distinction of having been the discoverers of chemistry which has been so long awarded to the Arabs, might with greater justice have been claimed for the Hindus. In point of antiquity the works of Charak and Susruta on Surgery and Materia Medica, belong to a period long anterior to Greber, and the earliest writers of Arabia; and served as authorities both for them and the Mediæval Greeks.[1] Such was their celebrity that two Hindu physicians, Manek and Saleh, lived at Bagdad in the eighth century, at the court of Haroun al Raschid.[2]
1: See Dr. ROYLE'S Essay on the Antiquity of Hindu Medicine, p. 64.
2: Professor Dietz, quoted by Dr. ROYLE.
One of the edicts of Asoca engraved on the second tablet at Girnar, relates to the establishment of a system of medical administration throughout his dominions, "as well as in the parts occupied by the faithful race as far as Tambaparni (Ceylon), both medical aid for men, and medical aid for animals, together with medicaments of all sorts, suitable for animals and men."[1]
1: Journal Asiat. Soc. Bengal, vol. vii. part. i. p. 159.
These injunctions of the Buddhist sovereign of Magadha were religiously observed by many of the Ceylon kings. In the "register of deeds of piety" in which Dutugaimunu, in the second century before Christ, caused to be enrolled the numerous proofs of his devotion to the welfare of his subjects, it was recorded that the king had "maintained at eighteen different places, hospitals provided with suitable diet and medicines prepared by medical practitioners for the infirm."[1] In the second century of the Christian era, a physician and a surgeon were borne on the establishments of the great monasteries[2], and even some of the sovereigns acquired renown by the study and practice of physic. On Bujas Raja, who became king of Ceylon, A.D. 339, the Mahawanso pronounces the eulogium, that he "patronised the virtuous, discountenanced the wicked, rendered the indigent happy, and comforted the diseased by providing medical relief."[3] He was the author of a work on Surgery, which is still held in repute by his countrymen; he built hospitals for the sick and asylums for the maimed, and the benefit of his science and skill was not confined to his subjects alone, but was equally extended to the relief of the lower animals, elephants, horses, and other suffering creatures.
1: Mahawanso, ch. xxxii. p. 196.
2: Rock inscription at Mihintala, A.D. 262.
3: Mahawanso, ch. xxxvii. p. 242-245.
Botany.—The fact that the basis of their Materia Medica has been chiefly derived from the vegetable kingdom, coupled with the circumstance that their clothing and food were both drawn from the same source, may have served to give to the Singhalese an early and intimate knowledge of plants. It was at one time believed that they were likewise possessed of a complete and general botanical arrangement; but MOON, whose attention was closely directed to this subject, failed to discover any trace of a system; and came to the conclusion that, although well aware of the various parts of a flower, and their apparent uses, they have never applied that knowledge to a distribution of plants by classes or orders.[1]
1: MOON'S Catalogue of Indigenous and Exotic Plants growing in Ceylon. 4to. Colombo, 1824, p. 2.
Geometry.—The invention of geometry has been ascribed to the Egyptians, who were annually obliged to ascertain the extent to which their lands had been affected by the inundations of the Nile, and to renew the obliterated boundaries. A similar necessity led to like proficiency amongst the people of India and Ceylon, the minute subdivision of whose lands under their system of irrigation necessitated frequent calculations for the definition of limits and the division of the crops.[1]
1: The "Suriya Sidhanta," generally assigned to the fifth or sixth century, contains a system of Hindu trigonometry, which not only goes beyond anything known to the Greeks, but involves theorems that were not discovered in Europe till the sixteenth century.—MOUNT-STUART ELPHINSTONE'S India, b. iii. ch. i. p. 129.
Lightning Conductors.—In connection with physical science, a curious passage occurs in the Mahawanso which gives rise to a conjecture that early in the third century after Christ, the Singhalese had some dim idea of the electrical nature of lightning, and a belief, however erroneous, of the possibility of protecting their buildings by means of conductors.
The notices contained in THEOPHRASTUS and PLINY show that the Greeks and the Romans were aware of the quality of attraction exhibited by amber and tourmaline.[1] The Etruscans, according to the early annalists of Borne, possessed the power of invoking and compelling thunder storms.[2] Numa Pompilius would appear to have anticipated Franklin by drawing lightning from the clouds; and Tullus Hostilius, his successor, was killed by an explosion, whilst attempting unskilfully the same experiment.[3]
1: The electrical substances "lyncurium" and "theamedes" have each been conjectured to be the "tourmaline" which, is found in Ceylon.
2: "Vel cogi fulmina vel impetrari." —PLINY, Nat. Hist. lib. ii. ch. lii.
3: Ibid. There is an interesting paper on the subject of the knowledge of electricity possessed by the ancients, by Dr. FALCONER in the Memoirs of the Manchester Philosophical Society, A.D. 1788, vol. iii. p. 279.
CTESIAS, a contemporary of Xenophon, spent much of his life in Persia, and says that he twice saw the king demonstrate the efficacy of an iron sword planted in the ground in dispersing clouds, hail, and lightning[1]; and the knowledge of conduction is implied by an expression of LUCAN, who makes Aruns, the Etrurian flamen, concentrate the flashes of lightning and direct them beneath the surface of the earth:—
"dispersos fulminus ignes Colligit, et terræ mæsto cum murmure cendit."
Phars
. lib. i. v. 606.
1: PHOTIUS, who has preserved the fragment (Bibl. lxxii.), after quoting the story of CTESIAS as to the iron it question being found in a mysterious Indian lake, adds, regarding the sword, [Greek: "phêsi oe peri autou hoti pêgnimenos en tê gê nephous kai chalazês kai prêstêrôn estin apotropaios. Kai idein auton tauta phêsi Basileôs dis poiêsantos.">[ See BAEHR'S C'tesiæ Reliquiæ, &c., p. 248, 271.
There is scarcely an indication in any work that has come down to us from the first to the fifteenth century, that the knowledge of such phenomena survived in the western world; but the books of the Singhalese contain allusions which demonstrate that in the third and in the fifth century it was the practice in Ceylon to apply mechanical devices with the hope of securing edifices from lightning.
The most remarkable of these passages occurs in connection with the following subject. It will be remembered that Dutugaimunu, by whom the great dagoba, known as the Ruanwellé, was built at Anarajapoora, died during the progress of the work, B.C. 137, the completion of which he entrusted to his brother and successor Saidaitissa.[1] The latest act of the dying king was to form "the square capital on which the spire was afterwards to be placed[2], and on each side of this there was a representation of the sun."[3] The Mahawanso states briefly, that in obedience to his brother's wishes, Saidaitissa "completed the pinnacle,"[4] for which the square capital before alluded to served as a base; but the Dipawanso, a chronicle older than the Mahawanso by a century and a half, gives a minute account of this stage of the work, and says that this pinnacle, which he erected between the years 137 and 119 before Christ, was formed of glass.[5]
1: Mahawanso, ch. xxxii. p. 198. See ante, [Vol. I. Pt. III. ch. v. p. 358.]
2: Ibid., ch. xxxi. p. 192.
3: Ibid., ch. xxxii. p. 193.
4: Ibid., ch. xxxiii. p. 200.
5: "Karàpesi khara-pindun mahá thupè varuttame." For this reference to the Dipawano I am indebted to Mr. DE ALWIS of Colombo.
A subsequent king, Amanda, A.D. 20, fixed a chatta (in imitation of the white umbrella which is emblematic of royalty) on the spire[1], and two centuries later, Sanghatissa, who reigned A.D. 234 to 246, "caused this chatta to be gilt, and set four gems in the centre of the four emblems of the sun, each of which cost a lac."[2] And now follows the passage which is interesting from its reference, however obscure, to the electrical nature of lightning. The Mahawanso continues: "he in like manner placed a glass pinnacle on the spire to serve as a protection against lightning."[3]
1: Mahawanso, ch. xxxv. p. 215.
2: Ibid., ch. xxxvi. p. 229.
3: Ibid., ch. xxxvi. p. 229. This belief in the power of averting lightning by mechanical means, prevailed on the continent of India as well as in Ceylon, and one of the early Bengalese histories of the temple of Juggernauth, written between the years A.D. 470 and A.D. 520, says that when the building was completed, "a neclchukro was placed at the top of the temple to prevent the falling of thunderbolts." In an account of the modern temple which replaced this ancient structure, it is stated that "it bore a loadstone at the top, which, as it drew vessels to land, was seized and carried off two centuries ago by sailors."—Asiat. Res. vol. xv. p. 327.
The term "wajira-chumbatan" in the original Pali, which TURNOUR has here rendered "a glass pinnacle," ought to be translated "a diamond hoop," both in this passage and also in another in the same book in which it occurs.[1] The form assumed by the upper portion of the dagoba would therefore resemble the annexed sketch.
1: In describing the events in the reign of Dhaatu-Sena, the king at whose instance and during whose reign the Mahawanso was written by his uncle Mahanamo, between the years A.D. 459, 477, the author, who was contemporary with the occurrence he relates, says, that "at the three principal chetyos (dagobas) he made a golden chatta and a diamond hoop (wajira-chumbaton) for each."—Mahawanso, ch. xxxviii. p. 259. Similar instances of gems being attached to the chattas of dagobas are recorded in the same work, ch. xlii. and elsewhere.
The original passage relative to the diamond hoop placed by Sanghatissa runs thus in Pali, "Wisun satasahassagghé chaturócha mahamanin majjhé chatunnan suriyánán thapápési mahipati; thupassa muddhani tatha anagghá wajira-chumbatan," which Mr. DE ALWIS translates: "The king caused to be set four gems, each of the value of a lac, in the centre of the four emblems of the sun, and likewise an invaluable adamantine (or diamond) ring on the top of the thupa." Some difficulty existed in TURNOUR'S mind as to the rendering to be given to these two last words "wajira-chumbatan." Prof. H.H. WILSON, to whom I have submitted the sentence, says, "Wajira is either 'diamond,' or 'adamant,' or 'the thunderbolt of Indra;'" and with him the most leaned Pali scholars in Ceylon entirely concur; De Saram, the Maha-Moodliar of the Governor's Gate, the Rev. Mr. Gogerly, Mr. De Alwis, Pepole the Hight Priest of the Asgiria (who was TURNOUR'S instructor in Pali), Wattegamine Unnanse of Kandy, Bulletgamone Unnanse of Galle, Batuwantudawe, of Colombo, and De Soyza, the translator Moodliar to the Colonial Secretary's Office. Mr. DE ALWIS says, "The epithet anagghan, 'invaluable' or 'priceless,' immediately preceding and qualifying wajira in the original (but omitted by Turnour in the translation), shows that a substance far more valuable than glass must have been meant." "Chumbatan," Prof. Wilson supposed to be the Pali equivalent to the Sanskrit chumbakam, "the kisser or attractor of steel;" the question he says is whether wajira is to be considered an adjective or part of a compound substantive, whether the phrase is a diamond-magnet pinnacle, or conductor, or a conductor or attractor of the thunderbolt. In the latter case it would intimate that the Singhalese had a notion of lightning conductors, Mr. DE ALWIS, however, and Mr. GOGERLY agree that chumbaka is the same both in Sanskrit and Pali, whilst chumbata is a Pali compound, which means a circular prop or support, a ring on which something rests, or a roll of cloth formed into a circle to form a stand for a vessel; so that the term must be construed to mean a diamond circlet, and the passage, transposing the order of the words, will read literally thus:
thapapesi tatha muddhani thupassa
he placed in like manner on the top of the thupo
anagghan wajira-chumbatan.
a valuable diamond hoop.
TURNOUR wrote his translation whilst residing at Kandy and with the aid of the priests, who being ignorant of English could only assist him to Singhalese equivalents for Pali words. Hence he was probably led into the mistake of confounding wajira, which signifies "diamond," or an instrument for cutting diamonds, with the modern word widura, which bears the same import but is colloquially used by the Kandyans for "glass." However, as glass as well as the diamond is an insulator of electricity, the force of the passage would be in no degree altered whichever of the two substances was really particularised. TURNOUR was equally uncertain as to the meaning of chumbatan, which in one instance he has translated a "pinnacle" and in the other he has left without any English equivalent, simply calling "wajira-chumbatan" a "chumbatan of glass."—Mahawanso, ch. xxxviii. p. 259.
A. Crown of the Dagoba.
B. The capital, with the sun on each of the four sides.
C. The spire.
D. The umbrella or chatta, gilt and surrounded by "chumbatan," a diamond circlet.
The chief interest of the story centres in the words "to serve as a protection against lightning," which do not belong to the metrical text of the Mahawanso, but are taken from the explanatory notes appended to it. I have stated elsewhere, that it was the practice of authors who wrote in Pali verse, to attach to the text a commentary in prose, in order to illustrate the obscurities incident to the obligations of rhythm. In this instance, the historian, who was the kinsman and intimate friend of the king, by whose order the glass pinnacle was raised in the fifth century, probably felt that the stanza descriptive of the placing of the first of those costly instruments in the reign of Sanghatissa, required some elucidation, and therefore inserted a passage in the "tika," by which his poem was accompanied, to explain that the motive of its erection was "for the purpose of averting the dangers of lightning."[1]
1: The explanatory sentence in the "tika" is as follows:
"Thupassa muddhani tathá naggha wajira-chumbatanti tathewa mahà thupassa muddhani satasahasaggha nikan maha manincha patitha petwa ta—ahettà asani upaddawa widdhanse natthan adhara walayamewn katwa anaggha wajira-chumbatancha pujeseti atho."
Mr. DE SARAY and Mr. DE AIWIS concur in translating this passage as follows, "In like manner having placed a large gem, of a lac in value, on the top of the great thupa, he fixed below it, for the purpose of destroying the dangers of lightning, an invaluable diamond chumbatan, having made it like a supporting ring or circular rest." Words equivalent to those in italics, Mr. TURNOUR embodies in his translation, but placed them between brackets to denote that they wore a quotation.
The two passages, taken in conjunction, leave no room for doubt that the object in placing the diamond hoop on the dagoba, was to turn aside the stroke of the thunderbolt.
But the question still remains, whether, at that very early period, the people of Ceylon had such a conception, however crude and erroneous, of the nature of electricity, and the relative powers of conducting and non-conducting bodies, as would induce them to place a mistaken reliance upon the contrivance described, as one calculated to ensure their personal safety; or whether, as religious devotees, they presented it as a costly offering to propitiate the mysterious power that controls the elements. The thing affixed was however so insignificant in value, compared with the stupendous edifice to be protected, that the latter supposition is scarcely tenable. The dagoba itself was an offering, on the construction of which the wealth of a kingdom had been lavished; besides which it enshrined the holiest of all conceivable objects—portions of the deified body of Gotama Buddha himself; and if these were not already secured, from the perils of lightning by their own sanctity, their safety could scarcely be enhanced by the addition of a diamond hoop.
The conjecture is, therefore, forced on us, that the Singhalese, in that remote era, had observed some physical facts, or learned their existence from others, which suggested the idea that it might be practicable, by some mechanical device, to ward off the danger of lightning. It is just possible that having ascertained that glass or precious stones acted as insulators of electricity, it may have occurred to them that one or both might be employed as preservative agents against lightning.
Modern science is enabled promptly to condemn this reasoning, and to pronounce that the expedient, so far from averting, would fearfully add to, the peril. But in the infancy of all inquiries the observation of effects generally precedes the comprehension of causes, and whilst it is obvious that nothing attained by the Singhalese in the third century anticipated the great discoveries relative to the electric nature of lightning, which were not announced till the seventeenth or eighteenth, we cannot but feel that the contrivance described in the Mahawanso was one likely to originate amongst an ill-informed people, who had witnessed certain phenomena the causes of which they were unable to trace, and from which they were incapable of deducing any accurate conclusions.[1]
1: I have been told that within a comparatively recent period it was customary in this country, from some motive not altogether apparent, to surmount the lightning conductors of the Admiralty and some other Government buildings with, a glass summit.