The Village in the Jungle

by Leonard Woolf

Next morning, to the regret of all, they had to leave the pleasant village and resting-place of Maha Potana, and face again the suffering and weariness of the jungle. For two days their path led them through low thorny jungle, where there was little shelter from the sun. The track became stony and rocky; great boulders of grey lichen-covered rock were strewn among the thick undergrowth; at intervals could be seen enormous rocks towering above the trees. In the afternoon of the first day they caught their first glimpse of the sacred Beragama hill, which rises into three rounded peaks above the village and temple. Next day, towards evening, they had reached the high forest, which, starting from its foot, clothed the hill almost to its peaks.

Then, once again, the jungle parted suddenly, and they stood upon the bank of a great stream. The banks were deep, and enormous trees, kumbuk with its peeling bark and the wild fig-tree, shaded them. The season of drought had narrowed the stream of water, so that it flowed shallow in the centre of the channel, leaving on either side a great stretch of white sand. Up and down stream were innumerable pilgrims, washing from them in the sacred waters the dust of the journey, and the impurities of life, before they entered the village. They followed the example of the other pilgrims, and performed the required ablutions; after which they put on clean white clothes, and climbed a path on the opposite bank which led them into the village.

They found themselves in a long, very broad street, on each side of which were boutiques and houses and large buildings—resting-places for the pilgrims. The street was thronged with pilgrims, idling, buying provisions, hurrying to the temple. It was near the time for the procession to start from the temple. The festival lasted fourteen days, and every night the god was taken in procession through the village: it culminated in the great procession of the fourteenth night, which falls when the moon is full; and in the ceremony of the following morning, when the kapurala goes down, accompanied by all the pilgrims, into the bed of the river, and 'cuts the waters' with a golden knife. Silindu and his party arrived in Beragama on the ninth day of the festival, so that they would remain six days in the village, and take part in six processions.

At either end of the broad straight street stood temples. The one at the north end belonged to the Beragama deviyo: the temple or dewala itself was a small, squat, oblong building, above which at one end rose the customary dome-like erection of Hindu temples, on which are fantastically carved the images of gods. Around the temple was an enormous courtyard enclosed by red walls of roughly-baked bricks. Just outside the wall of the courtyard on the east side was another and a smaller temple belonging to the god's lawful wife. At the southern end of the street stood another temple: it was a square, dirty white building without a courtyard, but surrounded on all sides by a verandah, in which, among a litter of broken furniture and odds and ends, lounged and squatted and slept a large number of pilgrims. The only entrance to the shrine itself was through a doorway in the front, which was screened by a large curtain ornamented crudely with the figures of gods and goddesses. No one was allowed to enter behind this curtain except the kapuralas, for the temple belonged to the mistress of the Beragama deviyo.

The solemnity of the pilgrimage was intensified in the minds of Silindu and Karlinahami and the other pilgrims, who were villagers like themselves, by the mystery which surrounds the god. On the road and around the fires at night, in the streets of the village, and in the very courtyard of the temple, they listened to the tales and legends; and believing them all without hesitation or speculation they felt, through their strangeness, far more than they had ever felt with the Buddha of dagobas and vihares, that this god was very near their own lives.

Who was he, this Tamil god, living in the wilderness, whom the Tamils said was Kandeswami, the great Hindu god? These Buddhist villagers felt that they could understand him; he was so near to the devils of the trees and jungles whom they knew so well. He had once lived upon the centre of the three peaks of the great hill, ruling over the unbroken forest which stretched below him, tossing and waving north to the mountains, and south to the sea. That was why every night throughout the festival a fire blazed from the peak. But one day, as he sat among the bare rocks upon the top of the hill and looked down upon the winding river and the trees which cooled its banks, the wish came to him to go down and live in the plain beyond the river. Even in those days he was a Tamil god, so he called to a band of Tamils who were passing, and asked them to carry him down across the river. The Tamils answered, 'Lord, we are poor men, and have travelled far on our way to collect salt in the lagoons by the seashore. If we stop now, the rain may come and destroy the salt, and our journey will have been for nothing. We will go on, therefore, and on our way back we will carry you down, and place you on the other side of the river, as you desire.' The Tamils went on their way, and the god was angry at the slight put upon him. Shortly afterwards a band of Sinhalese came by: they also were on their way to collect salt in the lagoons. Then the god called to the Sinhalese, and asked them to carry him down across the river. The Sinhalese climbed the hill, and carried the god down, and bore him across the river, and placed him upon its banks under the shadow of the trees, where now stands his great temple. Then the god swore that he would no longer be served by Tamils in his temple, and that he would only have Sinhalese to perform his ceremonies; and that is why to this day, though the god is a Tamil god, and the temple a Hindu temple, the kapuralas are all Buddhists and Sinhalese.

The god, therefore, is of the jungle; a great devil, beneficent when approached in the right manner and season, whose power lies for miles upon the desolate jungle surrounding his temple and hill. A power to swear by, for he will punish for the oath sworn falsely by his hill; a power who will listen to the vow of the sick or of the barren woman; a power who can aid us against the devils which perpetually beset us.[33]

It was in this way that the pilgrims regarded the god, and they chose well the time of his festival to approach him. For the god loved a hind, and had made her his mistress, and had placed her in the temple which stood at the southern end of his street. On each of the fourteen nights of his festival the kapuralas entered his shrine, and covering the god in a great black cloth, so that no one should look upon him, carried him out, and placed him upon the back of an elephant. Then the pilgrims called upon the name of the god, and with bowls of blazing camphor upon their heads followed him in procession to his mistress's temple. There the kapuralas, blindfolded, took the god, hidden by the cloth, from the elephant, and carried him up the steps of the temple. Again, the pilgrims shouted the god's name, and women pressed forward to touch the kapurala as he passed, for in this way they escape the curse of barrenness. The kapurala carried the god to his mistress, and then retired. Amid the roar of tomtoms, the jangling of bells, the flaring of great lights, and the passionate shouts of the people, the pilgrims prostrated themselves. Then the kapurala, still blindfolded, again slipped behind the curtain into the shrine, and brought out the god and placed him upon the elephant, and the procession followed him back to his own temple.

Silindu and the others reached the village in the evening, only a little while before the procession started. They therefore made their way at once to the great temple, and took their stand among the pilgrims who crowded the courtyard. They had eaten nothing since the midday meal; they were hungry and dizzy after the long days upon the road. Silindu seemed too dazed and weak to take much notice of what was taking place about him, and he had to be helped along by Babun. Karlinahami was awed and devout: an old pilgrim, she knew the demeanour required of her.

The effect upon Hinnihami was different. Tired and hungry though she was, even the great crowd in the courtyard excited her. As each new pilgrim arrived he called aloud upon the god; and the whole crowd took up the cry, which rose and fell around the shrine. She who had before never seen more than forty or fifty people in her life felt the weight and breath of thousands that jostled and pressed her. Her heart beat as, under the flare of the torches, hundreds of arms were raised in supplication, and to the crash of the tomtoms the name of the god thundered through the air. The tears came into her eyes and ran down her cheeks as time after time the roll of the many voices surged about her; and when at last the great moment came, and the kapurala appeared carrying the god under the black cloth, and over the sea of arms the elephant lifted up its trunk and trumpeted as the god was placed upon its back, she stretched out her hands and cried to, the god to hear her.