In Old Ceylon

IN OLD CEYLON REGINALD MRRER I :>b J IN OLD CEYLON World. The Oldest and Holiest Tree in the IN OLD CEYLON A- REGINALD FARRER AUTHOR OF ' MY ROCK GARDEN," " ALPINES AND BOG PLANTS, " THE GARDEN OF ASIA," ETC. ILLUSTRATED LONDON EDWARD ARNOLD iBuliltsiljcr to tl)p InKta <9£Rre 1908 [A a rights reserved^ A LA TRES-HAULTE ET TRES-BENIGNE PRINCESSE MA DAME MARGUERITE, ROYNE D£ SARAWA CONTENTS PART I PRELIMINARIES CHAPTER PAGE I. COLOMBO ------ I - ir. INITIATION - - - - l6 HI. ROUND COLOMBO - - - - - 32 IV. KANDY - - - - - - 49 V. IN THE HOLY OF HOLIES - - - - 68 VI. GADALADENIYA AND PERADENIYA - - "85 PART II THE EIGHT DAYS' ODYSSEY : FROM KANDY TO THE SACRED CITY VII, MATALE, ALUVIHARA, NALANDA, DAMBULLA - IO5 VIII. ON THE ROAD TO SIGIRI - - - - 125 IX. SIGIRI ROCK _ _ _ _ - 144 - X. TO POLONNARUA - - - - 1 62 - XI. POLONNARUA - - - - 1 83 XII. KALAVEWA, AWKANA, AND THE SACRED CITY - 2O4 PART III THE SACRED CITY XIII. THUPARAMA DAGABA - _ - _ 225 XIV. THE PRINCESS-ABBESS AND THE HOLY TREE - 243 XV. RUANWELI DAGABA - _ - _ 265 XVI. THE THREE GREAT DAGABAS _ - _ 285 XVII. AN ABBEY AND A HERMITAGE - _ _ ^08 XVIII. MIHINTALE, THE HOLY HILL - _ - 23O INDEX ------ 248 LIST OF PLATES FACING PAGE The Oldest and Holiest Tree in the World Frontispiece "The Elephants bathing at Katugastote"- - - 42 Tortoises on the Library Tower of the Dalada Maligawa, Kandy - - - - - - 62 The original Dalada Maligawa, the Tooth-Relic's first shrine, at Anuradhapura - - - - 78 Gadaladcniya : Dagaba and Church - - - 90 Sigiri Rock - - - - - -118 On Mahaweliganga - - - - - 140 Looking back, from the Long Gallery of Sigiri, to the Kandyan Mountains- - - - - 158 Restored Stone Railing, at Anuradhapura, belonging to Abhayagiriya Vihara - - - - 180 Abhayagiriya Dagaba ----- 222 Thuparama Dagaba - _ _ - - 240 Moonstone of an old Abbey (called " The Queen's Palace '), Anuradhapura - _ - - - 260 The Drum (restored) and Western Altar of Mirisawdtiya Dagaba ..--_- 280 J^tavdnarama Dagaba ----- 300 Rock-hewn Bathing-Pool near Issurumuniya - - 328 " Lankarama " Dagaba ----- 344 IX " Vain the ambition of kings Who seek, by trophies and dead things, To leave a living name behind. Yet weave but traps to catch the wind," IN OLD CEYLON PART I PRELIMINARIES CHAPTER I COLOMBO Hull down, hull down, lies Lanka, sleeping island of the saints. But already for several days the air has been soft with its scented odour of sanctity. Faint breezes of per- fume hover and linger round the ship as she dreams her way across the surface of a flawless opal sea. And each night the calm dark sweetness of the tropics thrills yet more and more poignantly about us ; the tender warmth of the South lays its fingers on our heart-strings, and sets them dancing to strange unaccustomed tunes. Every- thing heralds the approach of fairyland—of that beautiful dream-Paradise which is the very kingdom of heaven on earth—the land for ever consecrated to holy feet that never lighted there. And so at last one rises, in the blazing morning, to the reality of sweltering Colombo. Colombo, city of small account, has no place in the existence of Lanka. Colombo is a modern ugly mush- room, a convenience, an invention of modern ugly races that were ravening in blue woad when Asoka ruled the East, that were jabbering inarticulate jargon when the Most Perfect One was incarnate for the last time on I — 2 IN OLD CEYLON earth. And an ill reality makes Colombo, a discordant awakening from the fragrant dreams and ecstasies through which the wanderer approaches Lanka by the gateway of calm radiant dawns, and sunsets all a benign blare of fire. Flat, flat is the land here, and the town that squatters along its shore—flat as an old stale story that was never interesting. From the ship, in the quivering glare of morning, one gleans an impression of red huddled buildings, grime and energy. Red is all Colombo when you land —red the tall buildings, red the roads, and red, too, the rare flame of Spathodea, which, for the rest, cannot thrive nor show its full magnificence in this low and torrid climate of Colombo. And, up and down, in shade or glare, runs furiously the unresting tide of life. The main street is walled in by high, barrack-like structures, fiercely western in the heart of the holy East, and the big hotels upon its frontage extend their uncompromising European fagades. Within them there is a perpetual twilight, and meek puss-faced Cinhalese take perpetually the drink - orders of prosperous planters and white- whiskered old fat gentlemen in sun-hats lined with green. At night these palaces are ablaze with lights and bands visible realization of earthly pleasure to poor toiling souls from the farthest lonely heights of the mountains and the jungle. Shops, too, for the allurement of the casual traveller, line the way. Here is a gigantic storehouse of mixed treasures, where you go to follow the example of the elderly gentlemen and purchase a sun-hat ; where you remain to con the multitudinous cases full of silver and ivory atrocities from Japan, made up by the gross for European consumption in that most arrogant country of craftsmen, where insult is touched ofl^ as lightly and with the same sure skill as perfect beauty. Then there are embroideries. 2 COLOMBO 3 —Turkish, Algerian, Cashmiri, what you will —everything except Cinhalese. Next door, perhaps, outlined against the cool dusk of his shop, the gesticulations of a smiling Moorman invite you in to see his jewels, or else his clamorous, pimp-like boys rush to prey upon you in the open street and drag you in. And once allured, there is no escape. Blandly smiling, the fat spider lays before you tray upon tray of treasures, all lying loose on their broad platters of black velvet—pierced rough turquoise from the farthest mountains of the North ; opals, frail with Australian and feminine, palpitating sunshine ; green lumps of jade or emerald. Then come the stones of Ceylon itself, for opal, diamond, turquoise, and emerald are aliens in Lanka ; nor, with rare exception, can the Cinhalese ruby enter into any sort of rivalry with his blood-hot cousin of Burma—in fact, Cinhalese rubies are about as inferior as Burmese sapphires. And it is the sapphire that is lord of Lanka—the sapphire in forms and shapes and colours unknown to the Western world, where the sapphire is always thought of as the deep rich blue which is black by night. Here, though, there are sapphires shallow, light and cheerful—pale azure sapphires, golden-gleaming sapphires, apricot-coloured sapphires, sapphires clear as dew at dawn, sapphires green as calm water, sapphires in every shade of gentle lilac to a ful- minating violet, and so on into the rich reds where sapphire merges with ruby, the same stone under another name and colour. And all these lie heaped and piled before us, for the casual comer, it seems, to play with at his will. On their trays they make jumbled rainbows ; one may take up brimming handfuls of jewels and let them trickle through one's fingers in the sunlight —a rivulet of radiance, dewdrops crystallized and indestructible in their prismatic glory. Back they tumble, jingling, and lie in I — 4 IN OLD CEYLON a kaleidoscope of bright wonders, shifting, sparkling, vanishing as you paddle them to and fro with careless finger. Then the procession of jewels continues. Sapphire has not yet shown you all it can do. From little brown canvas bags, such as those in which we Westerners some- times carry mere contemptible sovereigns when we are so fortunate as to possess them, comes bounding forth, upon beds of snow-white paper, the moony refulgence of the star-stones. Of a soft dove-grey is the typical star- sapphire, of a tender, clouded, milky blue, of pearly tones softly cerulean the bluebell like a mountain mist, or as ; and, grey or white or blue, always there nestles at its V heart a floating six-rayed star of pure light, that shifts and wavers across the surface of the stone as you move it to and fro. In the old days, the cutters who roped the Kings of Lanka in chains of ruby and cat's-eye had the art of so cutting these star-stones that ripple after ripple of radiance followed hard upon each other's heels as the jewel turned this way and that. But the secret lies long buried in the heart of dead Ceylon, and nowadays we must be contented with the hexagonal prism across that lovely clouded surface. And then, from its dreaming blues, the star-sapphire advances into delicate mauves and lilacs, into curdled purples and a soft, clouded crimson. And now, lo and behold, it is star-ruby, the same and not the same. And they indefinitely, these stars: some are flawed flecked vary and ; some have bright clear beams upon a soapy, indeterminate ground ; some have a rich, satisfying china-blue, and yet no clean yet others lose their gleam through an excess ray ; of transparency, or through their mass distract it by threads and undulations of a deeper colour than their ground. Rare indeed it is to find a star-sapphire that shall combine clear- COLOMBO 5 ness and brilliancy of star with solid true blue for its founda- tion ; fine star, as a rule, spells indifferent colour : fine colour, a vague, unsatisfactory star. Then, after the stars, come the cabochons—round-cut, like frozen drops of coloured water, lucent, diaphanous, without spark, except at the one point where, like a dew-globe, they catch the light.

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