island. Two years after this Solían invasion, a. D. 1025, a large body of Sivaites who fled in terror from Somnaut in India, where Mahmoud of Ghuznee had overthrown their temple, found a refuge in Ceylon; and this access of numbers no doubt largely contributed to strengthen the power of the Hindus in the land. The circumstances of the country however, in both the next and the succeeding century, were equally as bad, from a Buddhist point of view; and quite sufficient to account for the origination and confirmation of any belief that connected the Samanala peak with the worship of Sivá. There is no doubt about the fact, that the Sivánoli-padam was resorted to by Hindu pilgrims in the early part of the fourteenth century, and as the pilgrimage was then an established custom, it may have been in vogue for a century or two earlier, for all that is known to the contrary. observing old traveller Ibn Batutu, after his arrival at Puttalam, on the North-west coast, thus describes his reception by "Ayarí Shakartí," the principal chief or sub-king of the district. "He said, Do not be shy; ask for what you wish. I answered, My only desire in coming to the island. was to visit the blessed foot of our forefather Adam; whom these people call Bábá, while they style Eve Mámá. This, replied he, is easy enough. We will send some one with you who will conduct you thither.......He then gave me a palanquin which his servants carried upon their shoulders. That * The chapter of Ibn Batutu's travels relating to Ceylon, and containing the account of his ascent to the top of Adam's Peak will be found in Appendix B. He also sent with me four Jogees, who were in the habit of visiting the foot-mark every year; with these went four Brahmans, and ten of the king's companions, with fifteen men carrying provisions." From the fourteenth century to the present the custom has been kept up amongst the Hindu worshippers of Sivá. Hindus of other branches of Brahmanical faith seem to have frequented the mountain peak at the same period, but they either did not know or entirely ignored the legend that connected it with Sivá. They, in fact, held to the more ancient. worship of Saman, a worship by no means repugnant to the feelings of the Sinhalese. This is ascertained from the following dialogue between two Brahmans contained in the Sinhalese poem entitled "Perakumbásirita," the life of Perakumbá, or Prákramabáhu VI., supposed by some to have been written by Srí Ráhula of Toṭagamuwa, a loyal panegyrist of that monarch, at whose Court at Jayawardhana, the modern Cotta, he resided:*- කියග මගිය එනු කොයි සිට, දද, සමනල ගොසිනා kiyaga magiya enu koyi sita, Dada, Samanala gosiná එපුර අමුතු කිමෙක, බමුන, සුමන සුරිඳු විසිනා epura amutu kimeka Bamuna Sumaua, surindu wisiná * For the extract in the text I am indebted to the Rev. C. Alwis, whose intimate acquaintance with the classic literature of his native land, and extensive knowledge of its legendary lore are surpassed by but few of his contemporaries. Ile has most obligingly assisted me in my researches, and furnished me with much valuable and interesting matter connected with the subject of this work. The extract was accompanied by the ගිය කල දෙදහස් පන් සිය රජෙක් එතෙයි දියනා giya kala dedahas pan siya rajek eteyi Diyaná කියලිය තන්වැසි ඒ නම් පැරකුම් රජ මෙදිනා kiyaliya tanwesi énam Perakum raja mediná, O tell me, traveller, from whence you wend your way? At a later date the Sivaites became the actual custodians of the mountain, Rája Sinha the Apostate from Buddhism having delivered it over to a body of Aandiyás, Fakeers of the Saiva sect, after putting to death the orthodox Bhikkhus,* and burning all the sacred and historical books that he could find of the faith which he had abandoned. These Aandiyás retained possession of the mountain for a period of 160 years, when the pious king Kirti Srí, restored it to the Buddhists, bestowing the custody of the peak, with the royal village Kuṭṭápitiya, upon the priest Weliwița;† at the same time following literal translation. "Tell (me) O traveller! where do you come from?-O Brahman (I am returning) from having gone to Samanala.— What news is there in that country, O Brahman! from the chief god Sumana?-When two thousand five hundred years shall have elapsed, they say that there would come a king, the chief of the world.-Then it can be said, O citizen! that it is the king Perakum of this day." * Bhikkhu, a person who lives on fragments; a Buddhist priest. † A translation of the sannas or royal grant, is given in Appendix C. conferring upon him, for his eminent services in restoring the religion of Buddha, and procuring from Siam the Upasampadá ordination, the title of Sangha Rájah, or king of priests. The Aandiyás tried to regain possession, and in an appeal to the king for that purpose, made him a present of a splendid pair of elephant's tusks. The king accepted the present, but did not grant the petition; remarking, that the mountain belonged to Buddha and was not his to dispose of; at the same time he sent the tusks as an offering to the Sripáda. The high-priests of the temple retained possession of these tusks until the British troops first entered the country, when they were removed to Kandy, and from thence to the Gadaládeni vihára in Udunuwara, where, in 1827, it was said they were still to be seen. There is nothing recorded in the life of Mohammad, nor is there anything in the Kurán to shew that that enthusiastic Arabian iconoclast, the founder of the faith of Islam, was a believer in the tradition that connected Adam, the divinely created progenitor of the human race, and "greatest of all the patriarchs and prophets," with the holy mount of Serandib; yet the tradition was current amongst the Copts in the fourth and fifth centuries; and in a paper by Mr. Duncan, in the Asiatic Researches, containing historical remarks on the coast of Malabar, mention is made of a native chronicle, in which it is stated that a king of that country who was contemporary with Mohammad, was converted to Islam by a party of dervishes on their pilgrimage to Adam's Peak.* But, as the standard of the Crescent rose, and the prowess of its turbaned followers, with almost incredible celerity, spread far and wide the doctrines of him who called himself the Apostle of God, and, after Adam, "the last and greatest of the prophets," so, with like speed, did the wondrous tales of the old Arab voyagers and traders of Ceylon† spread * Asiatic Researches, vol. v. p. 9. This conversion "was effected by a company of dervishes from Arabia who touched at Crungloor, or Cranganore (then the seat of Government in Malabar) on their voyage to visit the Footstep of Adam, on that mountain in Ceylon which mariners distinguish by the name of Adam's Peak." In a note, Mr. Duncan adds: "This Footstep of Adam is, under the name of Sre-pud or the 'holy foot,' equally reverenced and resorted to by the Hindus." † Arab traders were known in Ceylon centuries before Mohammad was born, "and such was their passion for enterprise, that at one and the same moment they were pursuing commerce in the Indian ocean, and manning the galleys of Marc Antony in the fatal sea-fight at Actium. The author of the Periplus found them in Ceylon after the first Christian century, Cosmos Indico-pleustes in the sixth; and they had become so numerous in China in the eighth, as to cause a tumult in Canton. From the tenth till the fifteenth century, the Arabs, as merchants, were the undisputed masters of the East; they formed commercial establishments in every country that had productions to export, and their vessels sailed between every sea-port from Sofala to Bab-el-Mandeb, and from Aden to Sumatra. The 'Moors' who at the present day inhabit the coasts of Ceylon, are the descendants of these active adventurers; they are not purely Arabs in blood, but descendants from Arabian ancestors by intermarriage with the native races who embraced the religion of the prophet."-Sir J. E. TENNENT's Ceylon, vol, i. p. 607. |