1: See ante, [Vol. I. Part III. ch. viii. p. 378.]
On comparing this system with other prevailing religions which divide with it the worship of the East, Buddhism at once vindicates its own superiority, not only by the purity of its code of morals, but by its freedom from the fanatical intolerance of the Mahometans and its abhorrent rejection of the revolting rites of the Brahmanical faith. But mild and benevolent as are its aspects and design, its theories have failed to realise in practice the reign of virtue which they proclaim. Beautiful as is the body of its doctrines, it wants the vivifying energy and soul which are essential to ensure its ascendancy and power. Its cold philosophy and thin abstractions, however calculated to exercise the faculties of anchorets and ascetics, have proved insufficient of themselves to arrest man in his career of passion and pursuit; and the bold experiment of influencing the heart and regulating the conduct of mankind by the external decencies and the mutual dependencies of morality, unsustained by higher hopes and by a faith that penetrates eternity, has proved in this instance an unredeemed and hopeless failure. The inculcation of the social virtues as the consummation of happiness here and hereafter, suggests an object sufficiently attractive for the bulk of mankind; but Buddhism presents along with it no adequate knowledge of the means which are indispensable for its attainment. In confiding all to the mere strength of the human intellect and the enthusiastic self-reliance and determination of the human heart, it makes no provision for defence against those powerful temptations before which ordinary resolution must give way; and affords no consoling support under those overwhelming afflictions by which the spirit is prostrated and subdued, when unaided by the influence of a purer faith and unsustained by its confidence in a diviner power. From the contemplation of the Buddhist all the awful and unending realities of a future life are withdrawn—his hopes and his fears are at once mean and circumscribed; the rewards held in prospect by his creed are insufficient to incite him to virtue; and its punishments too remote to deter him from vice. Thus, insufficient for time, and rejecting eternity, the utmost triumph of his religion is to live without fear and to die without hope.
Both socially and in its effects upon individuals, the result of the system in Ceylon has been apathy almost approaching to infidelity. Even as regards the tenets of their creed, the mass of the population exhibit the profoundest ignorance and manifest the most irreverent indifference. In their daily intercourse and acts, morality and virtue, so far from being apparent as the rule, are barely discernible as the exception. Neither hopes nor apprehensions have proved a sufficient restraint on the habitual violation of all those precepts of charity and honesty, of purity and truth, which form the very essence of their doctrine; and in proportion as its tenets have been slighted by the people, its priesthood are disregarded, and its temples neglected.
No national system of religion, no prevailing superstition that has ever fallen under my observation presents so dull a level, and is so pre-eminently deficient in popular influences, as Buddhism amongst the Singhalese. It has its multitude of followers, but it is a misnomer to describe them as its votaries, for the term implies a warmth and fervour unknown to a native of Ceylon. He believes, or he thinks he believes, because he is of the same faith with his ancestors; but he looks on the religious doctrines of the various sects which surround him with a stolid indifference which is the surest indication of the little importance which he attaches to his own. The fervid earnestness of Christianity, even in its most degenerate forms, the fanatical enthusiasm of Islam, the proud exclusiveness of Brahma, and even the zealous warmth of other Northern faiths, are all emotions utterly foreign and unknown to the followers of Buddhism in Ceylon.
Yet, strange to tell, under all the icy coldness of this barren system, there burn below the unextinguished fires of another and a darker superstition, whose flames overtop the icy summits of the Buddhist philosophy, and excite a deeper and more reverential awe in the imagination of the Singhalese. As the Hindus in process of time superadded to their exalted conceptions of Brahma, and the benevolent attributes of Vishnu, those dismal dreams and apprehensions which embody themselves in the horrid worship of Shiva, and in invocations to propitiate the destroyer; so the followers of Buddha, unsatisfied with the vain pretensions of unattainable perfection, struck down by their internal consciousness of sin and insufficiency, and seeing around them, instead of the reign of universal happiness and the apotheosis of intellect and wisdom, nothing but the ravages of crime and the sufferings produced by ignorance, have turned with instinctive terror to propitiate the powers of evil, by whom alone such miseries are supposed to be inflicted, and to worship the demons and tormentors to whom their superstition is contented to attribute a circumscribed portion of power over the earth.
DEMON WORSHIP prevailed amongst the Singhalese before the introduction of Buddhism by Mahindo. Some principle akin to it seems to be an aboriginal impulse of uncivilised man in his first and rudest conceptions of religion, engendered, perhaps, by the spectacle of cruelty and pain, the visitations of suffering and death, and the contemplation of the awful phenomena of nature—storms, torrents, volcanoes, earthquakes, and destruction. The conciliation of the powers which inflict such calamities, seems to precede, when it does not supplant, the adoration of the benevolent influence to which belong the creation, the preservation, and the bestowal of happiness on mankind; and in the mind of the native of Ceylon this ancient superstition has maintained its ascendancy, notwithstanding the introduction and ostensible prevalence of Buddhism; for the latter, whilst it admits the existence of evil spirits, has emphatically prohibited their invocation, on the ground that any malignant influence they may exert over man is merely the consequence of his vices, whilst the cultivators of virtue may successfully bid them defiance. The demons here denounced are distinct from a class of demigods, who, under the name of Yakshyos, are supposed to inhabit the waters, and dwell on the sides of Mount Meru, and are distinguished not only for gentleness and benevolence but even by a veneration for Buddha, who, in one of his earlier transmigrations, was himself born under the form of a Yakshyo, and, attended by similar companions, traversed the world teaching righteousness. One section of these demigods, however, the Rakshyos, are fierce and malignant, and in these respects resemble the Yakkas or demons so much dreaded by the Singhalese, and who, like the Ghouls of the Mahometans, are believed to infest the vicinity of graveyards, or, like the dryads and hamadryads of the ancients, to frequent favourite forests and groves, and to inhabit particular trees, whence they sally out to seize on the passer by.[1] The Buddhist priests connive at demon worship because their efforts are ineffectual to suppress it, and the most orthodox Singhalese, whilst they confess its impropriety, are still driven to resort to it in all their fears and afflictions.
1: Travellers from Point de Galle to Colombo, in driving through the long succession of gardens and plantations of coco-nuts which the road traverses throughout its entire extent, will not fail to observe fruit-trees of different kinds, round the stem of which a band of leaves has been fastened by the owner. This is to denote that the tree has been devoted to a demon; and sometimes to Vishnu or the Kattregam dewol. Occasionally these dedications are made to the temples of Buddha, and even to the Roman Catholic altars, as to that of St. Anne of Calpentyn. This ceremony is called Gok-band-ema, "the tying of the tender leaf," and its operation is to protect the fruit from pillage till ripe enough to be plucked and sent as an offering to the divinity to whom it has thus been consecrated. There is reason to fear, however, that on these occasions the devil is, to some extent, defrauded of his due, as the custom is, after applying a few only of the finest as an offering to the evil one, to appropriate the remainder to the use of the owner. When coco-nut palms are so preserved, the fruit is sometimes converted into oil and burned before the shrine of the demon. The superstition extends throughout other parts of Ceylon; and so long as the wreath continues to hang upon the tree, it is presumed that no thief would venture to plunder the garden.
Independent of the malignant spirits or Yakkas, who are the authors of indefinite evil, the Singhalese have a demon or Sanne for each form of disease, who is supposed to be its direct agent and inflictor, and who is accordingly invoked for its removal; and others, who delight in the miseries of mankind, are to be propitiated before the arrival of any event over which their pernicious influence might otherwise prevail. Hence, on every domestic occurrence, as well as in every domestic calamity, the services of the Kattadias or devil-priests are to be sought, and their ceremonies performed, generally with observances so barbarous as to be the most revolting evidence still extant of the uncivilised habits of the Singhalese. Especially in cases of sickness and danger, the assistance of the devil-dancer is implicitly relied on: an altar, decorated with garlands, is erected within sight of the patient, and on this an animal, frequently a cock, is to be sacrificed for his recovery. The dying man is instructed to touch and dedicate to the evil spirit the wild flowers, the rice, and the flesh, which have been prepared as the pidaneys or offerings to be made at sunset, at midnight, and the morning; and in the intervals the dancers perform their incantations, habited in masks and disguises to represent the demon which they personate, as the immediate author of the patient's suffering. In the frenzy of these orgies, the Kattadia having feigned the access of inspiration from the spirit he invokes, is consulted by the friends of the afflicted, and declares the nature of his disease, and the probability of its favourable or fatal termination. At sunrise, the ceremony closes by an exorcism chanted to disperse the demons who have been attracted by the rite; the devil-dancers withdraw with the offerings, and sing, as they retire, the concluding song of the ceremony, "that the sacrifice may be acceptable and the life of the sufferer extended."
In addition to this Yakka worship, which is essentially indigenous in Ceylon, the natives practise the invocation of a distinct class of demons, their conceptions of which are evidently borrowed from the debased ceremonies of Hinduism, though in their adoption they have rejected the grosser incidents of its ritual, and replaced them with others less cruel, but by no means less revolting. The Capuas, who perform ceremonies in honour of these strange gods, are of a higher rank than the Kattadias, who conduct the incantations to the Yakkas, and they are more or less connected with the Dewales and temples of Hinduism. The spirits in whose honour these ceremonies are performed, are all foreign to Ceylon. Some, such as Kattregam and Pattine, are borrowed from the mythology of the Brahmans; some are the genii of fire and other elements of the universe, and others are deified heroes; but the majority are dreaded as the inflictors of pestilence and famine, and propitiated by rites to avert the visitations of their malignity.
The ascendancy of these superstitions, and the anomaly of their association with the religion of Buddha, which has taken for its deity the perfection of wisdom and benevolence, present one of the most signal difficulties with which Christianity has had, at all times, to contend in the effort to extend its influences throughout Ceylon. The Portuguese priesthood discovered that, however the Singhalese might be induced to profess the worship of Christ, they adhered with timid tenacity to their ancient demonology. The Dutch clergy, in their reiterated lamentations over the failure of their efforts for conversion, have repeatedly recorded the fact, that however readily the native population might be brought to abjure their belief in the doctrines of Buddha, no arguments or expedients had proved effectual to overcome their terror of the demons, or check their propensity to resort on every emergency to the ceremonies of the Capuas, the dismal rites of the devil-dancers.[1] The Wesleyans, the Baptists, and other missionaries, who in later times have made the hamlets and secluded districts of Ceylon the scene of their unwearied labours, have found, with equal disappointment, that to the present hour the villagers and the peasantry are as powerfully attracted as ever by this strong superstition, bearing on their person the charms calculated to protect them from the evil eye of the demon, consulting the astrologers and the Capuas on every domestic emergency, solemnizing their marriages under their auspices, and requiring their presence at the birth of their children, who, together with their mother, are not unfrequently dedicated to the evil spirits, whom they dread.[2]