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I P J ♪ J K T K JYJNA DIAV

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title of king while his brother was supreme monarch at Anurādhapura. We learn also that he had a daughter who is not mentioned in the histories, and that she was married to her uncle King Uttiya, an unusual circumstance in Ceylon, although Yaṭṭhāla-Tissa appears to have married the daughter of his sister, the latter being the Abhi Anuradhi of the inscription. King Wasabha (66-11O A.D.) also married his uncle's widow (Mah., i, p. 140), and other instances of such connections occur in later times.

We may perhaps venture to assume that some idea of the position of women in Ceylon at that early date may be gathered from the fact that her name precedes that of the king. In dealing with the primitive religion I gave another instance of the precedence of a lady, perhaps a century afterwards; while in the middle of the first century B.C. we find a queen Anuļā (47-42 B.C.) reigning over the whole country for five years. Also in the inscription numbered 38 it will be seen that the name of a female chieftain, Parumaka Alapusayā, is mentioned. Dr. Davids has drawn attention to the circumstance that women are always placed before men in Buddhist texts.1 It is also clear from the statements in the Mahavansa that from the earliest times women were allowed great freedom and independence in Ceylon. Even if some of the accounts are fabrications of the annalists from whose works Mahānāma compiled his history, the incidents related by them at least prove that they believed such actions of ladies of a high rank to be customary. There is no evidence of the seclusion of women, such as we see in the Rāmāyana. Thus the Vaedda women are represented in the Jātaka story as proceeding to meet shipwrecked traders, who are not reported to evince any surprise at their accosting them without reserve. The Vaedda princess Kuwēni is described as marrying Wijaya without waiting to obtain the consent of her parents, who would have refused it in all probability.

In the story of the reception of Mahinda, the first Buddhist apostle, at the royal palace in about 244 B.C., it is stated that

1 The Questions of King Milinda, p. 83, note.

King Tissa sent for Anula, the wife of his brother, the King Nāga of this inscription, and apparently the mother of Queen Abhi Anuradhi, and probably also Tissa's own sister,1 to hear him expound the doctrine of Buddha. 'The said princess Anuļā proceeding thither, together with five hundred women, and having bowed down and made offerings to the theras [Mahinda and his five companions] placed herself respectfully by the side of them' (Mah., i, p. 53). In the afternoon when Mahinda was about to preach in the royal garden innumerable females of the first rank resorted thither, crowding the royal garden, and ranged themselves near the thera' (p. 54). According to the Dipavansa 'Noble women and maidens, the daughters-in-law and daughters of noble families crowded together in order to see the thera. While he exchanged greetings with them night had fallen' (p. 175).

The name of the place at which the inscription is cut is repeated at a cave lower down the hill in another inscription cut in similar early letters, as follows:

(4.)

Gapati tapasa Sumana kulasa lene sagasa dine agata anagata catu disa sagasa Pasu wisaraye. The cave of the family (of) the ascetic Sumana, the householder; given to the Community, to the Community of the four quarters, present or future, at the Pasu tank.

I think that there can be little or no doubt that the monastery was the Păcina, or Eastern, wihara which is recorded (Mah., i, p. 79) to have been established by King Dēvānam-piya Tissa, the first Buddhist King, and elder brother of Uttiya, who succeeded him. Pāsu represents the Pāli word Pācī, east ; several examples of the change of c into s, and i into u might be quoted.

Tissa ascended the throne in 245 B.C., and is said to have reigned forty years; but this cannot be trusted, as the reigns of the kings who lived about that time have been extended by the chroniclers in order to make the supposed arrival of the

1 I have already pointed out that the Indian Sakyas from whom the royal family were partly descended were accustomed to marry their sisters.

first Magadhese settlers under Wijaya synchronise with the very doubtful date adopted by the Sinhalese historians as the time when Buddha attained Nirvana or died, viz. 543 B.C. The real date was 477 B.C. according to Sir F. Max Müller ; 1 but doubts have been expressed regarding even this date, and Dr. Fleet has adopted 482 B.C. as a more satisfactory one.

There are no data for fixing the true lengths of the reigns between 245 and 205 B.C., but apparently all have been doubled in length by the early chroniclers. We shall be nearly correct in assuming that the wihara was established in about 235 B.C., and that the inscriptions may have been cut ten or fifteen years later.

The reason why King Uttiya used the term 'illustrious famous place' is explained in the Mahāvansa (i, p. 75) in the account of the transportation of the celebrated Bō-tree to Anuradhapura. 'On the tenth day of the month, elevating and placing the Bō-branch in a superb car this sovereign [Dēvānam-piya Tissa] who had by enquiry ascertained the consecrated places, escorting the monarch of the forest, deposited it at the site of the Pacīna wihāra; and entertained the priesthood [monks], as well as the people, with their morning meal. There (at the spot visited by Buddha's second advent) the chief thēra Mahinda narrated, without the slightest omission, to this monarch, the triumph obtained over the Nāgas (during the voyage of the Bō-branch) by the deity gifted with the ten powers. Having ascertained from the thera the particular spots on which the divine teacher had rested or taken refreshment, those several spots he marked with monuments.'

The reference to the action of the deity gifted with the ten powers,' that is, Buddha, shows that Mahinda was not relating an incident of the voyage of the Bō-branch, but the manner in which he was supposed to have terrified the Nagas into submission at this place when he came to Ceylon and

1 Dhammapada, p. xxxvi.

See my remarks on the chronology of the early kings of Ceylon at the end of this chapter. In the genealogical table I have allotted those from 245 to 205 B.C. half the time allowed in the Mahāvansa.

visited Nāgadipa. When the second note which Turnour inserted in brackets is omitted the meaning is quite clear.

Thus the words of the inscription confirm the statement of the history that even at that early date the story of Buddha's visits to Ceylon was currently believed. This monastic establishment evidently marks the place at which he was thought to have suppressed the civil war between the Nāga kings Culōdara and Mahōdara, and at which the Rājāyatana tree (Kiripalu in Sinhalese, Buchanania angustifolia) of Sakra was planted for the Nagas to worship (Mah., i, p. 6).

There is a discrepancy regarding the site of the Pacīna wihāra as proved by the inscription and that which is mentioned in the history. According to the Mahāvansa, in the quotation just given it would appear to be only half a day's journey from the place at which the Bō-tree was landed, but on p. 79 it is said to be at the port itself. I am unable to explain these conflicting remarks; the record left by King Uttiya must outweigh any ideas regarding the site expressed by a monk of Anuradhapura. A similar mistake is made by the annalist regarding the position of the Piyangala wihāra, which on p. 113 is represented as being less than two days' march for a monk from Anuradhapura, whereas the actual distance in a straight line is some 63 miles, which the windings of the path would make seventy or more. This wihāra was certainly at Kurundan-kuļam, and an inscription left there refers to it by name as 'this fearless1 excellent mountain Piyangala' (me abhaya isiri paw Piyangala). Until I studied King Uttiya's inscription I believed that the Pacīna wihāra was at Piyangala, which is in the midst of wild forest, about 15 miles south-west of Mulleittivu.

It is recorded (Mah., ii, p. 58) that Senā, queen of Dappula II (807-812 A.D.), repaired the terraced house on [at] the Păcina wihāra.'

It is surprising to read that King Silākāla (526–539 a.d.) removed the celebrated 'gem-set throne,' over the possession of which the Nāga kings were represented to have quarrelled 1 The character of the hill shows that in this instance abhaya must have been used with the meaning 'not causing fear.'

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