A.D. Buddhism, although tolerant of heresy, has ever been 209. vehement in its persecution of schism. Boldly confident in its own superiority, it bears without impatience the glaring errors of open antagonists, and seems to exult in the contiguity of competing systems as if deriving strength by comparison. In this respect it exhibits a similarity to the religion of Brahma, which regards with composure shades of doctrinal difference, and only rises into jealous energy in support of the distinctions of caste, an infringement of which might endanger the supremacy of the priesthood. To the assaults of open opponents the Buddhist displays the calmest indifference, convinced that in its undiminished strength, his faith is firm and inexpugnable; his vigilance is only excited by the alarm of internal dissent, and all his passions are aroused to stifle the symptoms of schism.3 This characteristic of the "religion of the Vanquisher" is in strict conformity, not alone with the spirit of his 1 Hence the indomitable hatred with which the Brahmans pursued the disciples of Buddhism from the fourth century before Christ to its final expulsion from Hindostan. "Abundant proofs," says Turnour, "may be adduced to show the fanatical ferocity with which these two great sects persecuted each other; and which subsided into passive hatred and contempt, only when the parties were no longer placed in the position of actual collision."-Introd. Mahawanso, p. xxii. 2 In its earliest form Buddhism was equally averse to persecution, and the Mahawanso extols the liberality of Asoko in giving alms indiscriminately to the members of all religions (Mahawanso, ch. v. p. 23). A sect which is addicted to persecution is not likely to speak approvingly of toleration, but the Mahawanso records with evident satisfaction the courtesy paid to the sacred things of Buddhism by the believers in other doctrines; thus the Nagas did homage to the relics of Buddha and mourned their removal from Mount Meru (Mahawanso, ch. xxxi. p. 189); the Yakkos assisted at the building of dagobas to enshrine them, and the Brahmans were the first to respect the Bo-tree on its arrival in Ceylon (Ib. ch. xix. p. 119). COSMAS INDICOPLEUSTES, whose informant, Sopater, visited Ceylon in the sixth century, records that there was then the most extended toleration, and that even the Nestorian Christians had perfect freedom and protection for their worship. Among the Buddhists of Burmah, however," although they are tolerant of the practice of other religions by those who profess them, secession from the national faith is rigidly prohibited, and a convert to any other form of faith incurs the penalty of death.". Professor WILSON, Journ. Roy. Asiat. Soc. vol. xvi. p. 261. doctrine, but also with the letter of the law laid down for the guidance of his disciples. Two of the singular rock-inscriptions of India deciphered by Prinsep, inculcate the duty of leaving the profession of different faiths unmolested; on the ground, that "all aim at moral restraint and purity of life, although all cannot be equally successful in attaining to it." The sentiments embodied in one of the edicts1 of King Asoca are very striking: "A man must honour his own faith, without blaming that of another, and thus will but little that is wrong occur. There are even circumstances under which the faith of others should be honoured, and in acting thus a man increases his own faith and weakens that of others. He who acts differently, diminishes his own faith and injures that of others. Whoever he may be who honours his own faith and blames that of others out of devotion to his own, and says, 'let us make our faith conspicuous,' that man merely injures the faith he holds. Concord alone is to be desired." The obligation to maintain the religion of Buddha was as binding as the command to abstain from assailing that of its rivals, and hence the kings who had treated the snake-worshippers with kindness, who had made a state provision for maintaining "offerings to demons," and built dwellings at the capital to accommodate the "ministers of foreign religions," rose in fierce indignation against the preaching of a firm believer in Buddha, who ventured to put an independent interpretation on points of faith. They burned the books of the Wytulyans, as the new sect were called, and frustrated their irreligous attempt.2 The first The twelfth tablet, which, as translated by BURNOUF and Professor WILSON, will be found in Mrs. SPEIR'S Life in Ancient India, book ii. ch. iv. p. 239. 2 The Mahawanso throws no light on the nature of the Wytulyan heresy (ch. xxvii. p. 227), but the Rujaratnacari insinuates that Wy | tulya was a Brahman who had "sub- A.D. 209. 209. A.D. effort at repression was ineffectual. It was made by the King Wairatissa, A.D. 209; but within forty years the schismatic tendency returned, the persecution was renewed, and the apostate priests, after being branded on the back, were ignominiously transported to the opposite coast of India.1 A.D. 248. 275. The new sect had, however, established an interest in high places; and Sanghamitta, one of the exiled priests, returning from banishment on the death of the king, so ingratiated himself with his successor, that he was entrusted with the education of the king's sons. One of the A.D. latter, Mahasen, succeeded to the throne, A. D. 275, and, openly professing his adoption of the Wytulyan tenets, dispossessed the popular priesthood, and overthrew the Brazen Palace. With the materials of the great wihara, he constructed at the sacred Bo-tree a building as a receptacle for relics, and a temple in which the statue of Buddha was to be worshipped according to the rites of the reformed religion.2 So bold an innovation roused the passions of the nation; the people prepared for revolt, and a conflict was imminent, when the schismatic Sangha-mitta was suddenly assassinated, and the king, convinced of his sents him as destroying the dewales at Anarajapoora in order to replace them with wiharas (Mahawanso, ch. xxxvii. p. 237). An account of the mingling of Brahmanical with Budd TURNOUR'S Epitome, p. 25. Mahawanso, ch. xxxvi. p. 232. As the Mahawanso intimates in another passage that amongst the priests who were banished to the opposite coast of India, there was one Sangha-hist worship, as it exists at the premitta, "who was profoundly versed in the rites of the demon faith ('bhuta'), it is probable that out of the Wytuly an heresy grew the system which prevails to the present day, by which the heterodox dewales and halls for devil dances are built in close contiguity to the temples and wiharas of the orthodox Buddhists, and the barbarous rites of demon worship are incorporated with the abstractions of the national religion. On the restoration of Mahasen to the true faith, the Mahawanso repre sent day, will be found in HARDY'S 2 Mahawanso, ch. xxxvii. p. 235. 275. errors, addressed himself with energy to restore the A.D. buildings he had destroyed, and to redress the mischiefs caused by his apostacy. He demolished the dewales of the Hindus, in order to use their sites for Buddhist wiharas; he erected nunneries, constructed the Jaytawanarama, (a dagoba at Anarajapoora,) formed the great tank of Mineri by drawing a dam across the Karaganga, and that of Kandelay or Dantalawa, and conservated the 20,000 fields which it irrigated to the Dennanaka Wihare. "He repaired numerous dilapidated temples throughout the island, made offerings of a thousand robes to a thousand priests, formed sixteen tanks to extend cultivation- there is no defining the extent of his charity"—and having performed during his existence acts both of piety and impiety, the Mahawanso cautiously adds, "his destiny after death was according to his merits.2 A.D. With King Mahasen end the glories of the "superior dynasty" of Ceylon. The "sovereigns of the Suluwanse, 302. who followed," says the Rajavali, "were no longer of the unmixed blood, but the offspring of parents, only one of whom was descended from the sun, and the other from the bringer of the Bo-tree or the sacred tooth; on that account, because the God Sakkraia had ceased to watch over Ceylon, because piety had disappeared, and the city of Anarajapoora was in ruins, and because the fertility of the land was diminished, the kings who succeeded Mahasen were no longer reverenced as of old."3 The prosperity of Ceylon, though it may not have attained its acme, was sound and auspicious in the beginning of the fourth century, when the solar line became extinct. Pihiti, the northern portion of the island, was that which most engaged the solicitude of the crown, from its containing the ancient capital, 1 TURNOUR'S Epitome, p. 25. 3 Rajavali, p. 239. 302. whence it obtained its designation of the Raja-ratta or country of the kings. Here the labour bestowed on irrigation had made the food of the population abundant, and the sums expended on the adornment of the city, the multitude of its sacred structures, the splendour of its buildings, and the beauty of its lakes and gardens, rendered it no inappropriate representative of the wealth and fertility of the kingdom. Anarajapoora had from time immemorial been a venerated locality in the eyes of the Buddhists; it had been honoured by the visit of Buddha in person, and it was already a place of importance when Wijayo effected his landing in the fifth century before the Christian era. It became the capital a century after, and the King Pandukabayo, who formed the ornamental lake which adjoined it, and planted gardens and parks for public festivities, built gates and four suburbs to the city; he set apart ground for a public cemetery, and erected a gilded hall of audience, and a palace for his own residence. The Mahawanso describes with particularity the offices of the Naggaratiko, who was the chief of the city guard, and the organisation of the low caste Chandalas, who were entrusted with the cleansing of the capital and the removal of the dead for interment. For these and for the royal huntsmen villages were constructed in the environs, mingled with which were dwellings for the subjugated native tribes, and temples for the worship of foreign devotees.1 Seventy years later, when Mahindo arrived in Ceylon, the details of his reception disclose the increased magnificence of the capital, the richness of the royal parks, and the extent of the state establishments; and describe the chariots in which the king drove to Mihintala to welcome his exalted guest.2 Yet these were but preliminary to the grander con 1 Mahawanso, ch. x. p. 66. 2 Ibid., ch. xiv. xv. xx. |