From Adam's Peak to Elephanta

by Edward Carpenter

JETAWANARAMA DÁGOBA, ANURÁDHAPURA.

(Ruins of a temple in foreground.)

Here for instance still standing in a great square, on a piece of ground over an acre in extent, are sixteen hundred rough-hewn columns, solid granite, projecting about ten feet out of the ground, and arranged in parallel rows at right angles to each other. They are supposed to form the foundation storey of a building nine storeys high, no doubt built of wood, but according to the ancient chronicles of the Mahawanso gorgeously decorated, with its resplendent brass-covered roof and central hall of golden pillars and ivory throne, erected in the second century B.C., occupied by the royal folk and the priests, and called the Brazen Palace.

Close by is the glory of Buddhism and of Ceylon, the oldest historical tree in the world, the celebrated bo-tree of Anurádhapura, planted 245 years before the Christian era (from a slip, it is said, of the tree under which Buddha sat when the great illumination came to him), and now more than twenty-one centuries old. Extraordinary as the age is, yet the chronicles of this tree’s life have been so carefully kept (see Emerson Tennent’s Ceylon, where twenty-five references from the Mahawanso and other chronicles are given, covering from B.C. 288 to A.D. 1739), that there is at least fair reason for supposing that the story is correct. The bo-tree, though belonging to the fig family, has a leaf strongly resembling that of an aspen. The mid-rib of the leaf is however prolonged some two inches into a narrow point, which is sometimes curved into quite a hook. The tremulous motion of the leaf and the general appearance of the tree also resemble the aspen, though the growth is somewhat sturdier. Thousands of bo-trees are planted all over India and Ceylon in memory of Buddha (though the tree was probably an object of veneration before his time); the ground is sacred where they stand, and a good Buddhist will on no account cut one down, however inconveniently it may be growing. This particular tree, it must be confessed, is somewhat disappointing. It is small, and though obviously old, does not suggest the idea of extreme antiquity. It springs from the top of a mound some fifteen feet high, and the probability I think is that this mound has in the course of centuries been thrown up round the original trunk to support and protect it—just as has happened to Milton’s mulberry tree at Cambridge, and to others—and thus has gradually hidden a great part of the tree from view. And this idea seems, to be supported by the fact that six or seven other and lesser stems branch out from neighboring parts of the same mound, the terraces and shrines which occupy the mound helping to conceal the fact that these also are, or were at one time, really all parts of one tree. Anyhow the whole enclosure, which is about an acre in extent and is surrounded by an ancient wall, is thickly planted with bo-trees, some of really fine dimensions, so that the pious pilgrim need have no difficulty in securing a leaf, without committing the sacrilege of robbing the venerable plant.

Here, to this sacred enclosure, and to deposit flowers and offerings within it, come at certain festivals thousands of Buddhist pilgrims. Trudging in on foot or driving by bullock-cart they camp out in the park-like grounds in the immediate neighborhood of the present village, and after paying their respects to the holy tree go to visit the dágobas and other monuments which enshrine a bone or a tooth or a hair from the brow of their great teacher. For the rest of the year these places are left almost unvisited. There are no guides to importune the rare tourist or traveler, and one wanders alone through the woods for a whole day and sees no one, except it be a troop of monkeys, with tails erect, playing leap-frog over the stumps of fallen columns, as if in ridicule of the old priests, or sitting like fakirs on the tops of those still standing.

The dágobas, which are by far the most important remains here, are bell-shaped structures mostly of solid brick, originally built to enshrine some relic. They might ingeniously be mistaken for ornamental candle-extinguishers made on a vast scale, and have mostly in their time been coated with a white plaster and decorated here and there with gold or brass. Round them have been courts supported on stone columns; and generally at the four points—North, East, West, and South—have been placed little shrines with well-cut steps and ornamental balustrades leading up to them. The interiors of these dágobas—such as they may have been—have never been accessible except to the priests; sometimes, no doubt, treasures have been concealed within them, but for the most part probably they have concealed nothing except the supposed relic, and have been built to gratify the pride and add to the popularity of the monarch of the day.

The Thuparama Dágoba, which stands at the northern extremity of the park-like clearings above mentioned, is supposed by Fergusson (Handbook to Architecture, vol. i., p. 41) to be older than any monument now existing on the continent of India. It was built by King Dewanipiatissa in B.C. 307 to enshrine the right collar-bone of Buddha, and was restored some years ago by the pious, so that one gets a good idea from it of the general appearance these objects originally presented. It is white, bell-shaped, and some sixty-five feet high, with a brass pinnacle on the top; and some elegant columns about eighteen feet high stand yet in admired disorder in the court below. In the accompanying illustration the dágoba and surrounding columns appear some distance in the background, and the stone pillars and steps in the foreground are the remains of the Dalada Maligawa—a temple which was built to receive the sacred tooth of Buddha when it was first brought over to Ceylon from the mainland. Round this tooth battles raged, and in the struggle for its possession dynasties rose and fell. The enormous saurian fang, which purports to be the same tooth, is now preserved in great state in the well-known Buddhist temple at Kandy, as I have already mentioned. The little figure of a gate-keeper or dhworpal at the foot of the steps is an excellent specimen of early Buddhist sculpture, and is very graceful and tender. It is given on a larger scale in a separate illustration ([page 113]).

THUPARAMA DÁGOBA, ANURÁDHAPURA.

(With ruins of Dalada Maligawa in foreground.)