Sinhalese

“ By an accident of nature it is separated from the continent by a narrow streak of sea, but its people are more closely allied to the thoroughly Indian races than are some of the great tribes who now inhabit the Indian peninsula. The Sinhalese, who form about two-thirds of the population, are the descendants of Aryan emigrants who left their homes in the Ganges valley more than five centuries before the Christian era. ”

“ These are exactly the surroundings in which a religion can flourish without change for many centuries and Buddhism in Ceylon acquired stability because it also acquired a certain national and patriotic flavour: it was the faith of the Sinhalese and not of the invading Tamils. Such Sinhalese kings as had the power protected the Church and erected magnificent buildings for its service.
If Sinhalese tradition may be believed, the first historical contact with northern India was the expedition of Vijaya, who with 700 followers settled in the island about the time of the Buddha's death. ”

“ At midnight he awoke; the dancing-girls were lying in the ante-room; an overpowering loathing filled his soul. He arose instantly with a mind fully made up—“roused into activity,” says the Sinhalese chronicle, “like a man who is told that his house is on fire.” He called out to know who was on guard, and finding it was his charioteer Channa, he told him to saddle his horse. While Channa was gone Siddhattha gently opened the door of the room where Yasodhara was sleeping, surrounded by flowers, with one hand on the head of their child. ”

“ It is hardly surprising that where Nature supplies so much without effort on his part, the Sinhalese is not according to our ideas industrious. To him the coconut palm is a necessary part of his existence, and he well expresses this in the saying that the tree will not grow out of sound of the human voice. But the coconut palm has another aspect in Ceylon. The Sinhalese gentry have discovered its commercial value, and in various parts of the island, especially round Negombo and Batticaloa, there are large estates where the nut is grown on the plantation system for export. ”

“ The Sinhalese are agriculturalists and nothing else; working on their own land is among them the most honourable pursuit, though they are not as ready to work for others. They brought with them from their original home in Bengal their national taste for rice, and kept to their former habits, although much of Ceylon is not well fitted for its cultivation, and great irrigation works were necessary to provide the water. Even on the hillsides we still see the padi grown by means of terraces. On the ridges between the padi fields are groves of coconut palms ”

“ The sanyasi spoke only a strange language, unintelligible to the Tamils and Sinhalese in the crowd, but there stood by him an old Tamil man who interpreted what he said.
Babun led Silindu up to the sanyasi and dropped the money in the bowl. He explained what he wanted to the old Tamil, who understood and spoke (very badly) Sinhalese. The crowd pressed forward to listen. The sanyasi and his interpreter muttered together. The old man then addressed the crowd, and told them that the holy man could not consult the god, or give an answer, with them pressing upon him. ”

“ In calling this primitive we must remember the possibility that some of this literature was elaborated in Ceylon itself. But, putting the text of the Piṭakas aside, it would seem that the early Sinhalese Buddhism was the same as that of Asoka, and that it never underwent any important change. It is true that mediæval Sinhalese literature is full of supernatural legends respecting the Buddha, [101] but still he does not become a god (for he has attained Nirvana) and the great Bodhisattvas, Avalokita and Manjuśrî, are practically unknown. ”

“ Then the god swore that he would no longer be served by Tamils in his temple, and that he would only have Sinhalese to perform his ceremonies; and that is why to this day, though the god is a Tamil god, and the temple a Hindu temple, the kapuralas are all Buddhists and Sinhalese.
The god, therefore, is of the jungle; a great devil, beneficent when approached in the right manner and season, whose power lies for miles upon the desolate jungle surrounding his temple and hill. A power to swear by, for he will punish for the oath sworn falsely by his hill ”

“ The authentic history of Ceylon, so far as it can be traced, begins with the landing in 543 B.C. of Vijaya, the founder of the Sinhalese dynasty, with a small band of Aryan-speaking followers from the mainland of India. Vijaya married the daughter of a native chief, with whose aid he proceeded to master the whole island, which he parcelled out among his followers, some of whom formed petty kingdoms. The Sinhalese introduced from the mainland a comparatively high type of civilization, notably agriculture. ”

“ About 1200 Chapata and his pupils who had studied in Ceylon and received ordination there refused to recognize the Talaing monks and two hostile schools were founded, predominant at first in Upper and Lower Burma respectively. (d) About 1250 the Sinhalese school, led by Sâriputta and others, began to make conquests in Lower Burma at the expense of the Talaing school. (e) Two centuries later, about 1460, Dhammaceti of Pegu boasts that he has purified religion and made the school of the Mahâvihâra, that is the most orthodox form of the Sinhalese school, the only sect. ”

“ He came in search of the old commentaries on the Tripiṭakas. The commentaries had been brought to Ceylon by the Emperor Asoka's son, the apostle Mahinda, and by him translated into Sinhalese. They continued to be orally transmitted until reduced to writing, in the reign of the Ceylon king, Vaṭṭāgamini (88-76 B.C.) , at a convocation of learned bhikkhus at the cave-temple of Alu Vihāre in the Matale district.
The original Pali version having perished in India, Buddhaghosa, during his residence in the Mahā-vihāre at Anuradhapura, re-translated it from Sinhalese to Pali. ”

“ We may now examine briefly some sides of popular religion and institutions which are not Buddhist. It is an interesting fact that the Burmese law books or Dhammathats [168] , which are still accepted as regulating inheritance and other domestic matters, are Indian in origin and show no traces of Sinhalese influence although since 1750 there has been a decided tendency to bring them into connection with authorities accepted by Buddhism. ”

“ We also find references to Vaeddās who were accustomed to enter the towns; one of them laid a complaint before a Sinhalese “king” that a person had threatened to kill him in the forest. Probably in all these instances we have a true picture of the actual position, in early times, of some of the Vaeddās who had not yet adopted, or had abandoned, the village life. Their chiefs were practically independent in their wild forests.
The Rākshasas (in village spelling Rāsayā, Rāsī) who are introduced into many tales are ogres like those of Europe. ”

“ Hsüan Chuang says that in the Malakûta country, somewhere near Madura or Tanjore, there was a stupa erected by Asoka's orders and also a monastery founded by Mahinda. It is possible that this apostle and others laboured less in Ceylon and more in south India than is generally supposed. The pre-eminence and continuity of Sinhalese Buddhism are due to the conservative temper of the natives who were relatively little moved by the winds of religion which blew strong on the mainland, bearing with them now Jainism, now the worship of Vishṇu or Śiva. ”

“ This Sinhalese school seems to be founded on the doctrines and scriptures accepted in the time of Asoka in Magadha and though the faith may have been codified and supplemented in its new home, I see no evidence that it underwent much corruption or even development. One is inclined at first to think that the Hindus, having a continuous living tradition connecting them with Gotama who was himself a Hindu, were more likely than these distant islanders to preserve the spirit of his teaching. ”

“ W. Goonetilleke, the learned editor of The Orientalist, a journal published during the years 1884–1892, in which many folk-tales of Ceylon were given. Mr. Goonetilleke said (vol. i. p. 36) , “What is really wanted ... are the genuine stories of the Sinhalese [and other races also] , those which are quite free from foreign influences, and have existed among the people from time immemorial. These can only be gathered from the inhabitants of villages and of the remoter parts of the island into which western civilization has not yet penetrated.” ”

“ In the Ramayana the Sinhalese are referred to as rakshas and nagas, demons and spirits, not human because racially opposed to the Aryan invaders. So Fa-Hien describes them in an interesting passage relating to their trade ( Travels, chap, xxxviii) : “the country originally had no human inhabitants, but was occupied only by spirits and nagas, with which merchants of various countries carried on a trade. When trafficking was taking place, the spirits did not show themselves. They simply set forth their precious things with labels of the price attached to them ”

“ The Sinhalese, who frequently marry their cousins on the328 paternal side, have from time immemorial lived either in very small villages, consisting of a few houses, or in detached habitations, separated from each other. Each dwelling is a little establishment in itself, and each little village, so far as its wants are concerned, may be considered independent. “They seldom visit each other, except it be to beg or borrow something. ”

“ Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province.
[Contents]
In The Jātaka, No. 61 (vol. i, p. 148) , there is an account of a Brāhmaṇa youth who, on completing the usual education, was asked by his mother if he had learnt the Dolour Texts, and on his replying in the negative was sent back to learn them. There were no such texts, but his mother intended him to learn the wickedness of women. This he did, but not in the manner related in the Sinhalese story. [117]
1 Siwsaeṭa kalā śilpaya. ”

“ The sienna-colored Singhalese proper are descended from the early conquerors of the island, the dark-brown Tamils from later invaders who came from southern India, and the copper-colored Moormen from the Arab merchants who came hither to trade for spices many centuries ago. The Singhalese have long, straight, black and silky hair, and are nearly always bareheaded. The Tamils as invariably wear turbans. According to the rules of caste, the Singhalese, being superior, has a right to go bareheaded, a privilege which is not allowed to the Tamils. ”

“ The Tamil covers his head with an ample turban out of deference to those of a higher caste, while the Singhalese proper would not think it respectful to wear anything upon his head in the presence of a superior. A Chinaman lets down his braided pigtail as a mark of respect to those above him in rank, or as a token of reverence in the temple, while a Singhalese twists his braid into a snood at the back of his head, and secures it by a shell comb, for the same purpose. ”

“ The other works in Singhalese are on subjects connected with history, such as the Rajavali and Rajaratnacai, on grammar and lexicography, on medicine, topography, and other analogous subjects. But in all their productions, though invested with the trappings of verse, there alike is an avoidance of what is practical and true, and an absence of all that is inventive and poetic. They contain nothing that appeals to the heart or the affections, and their efforts of imagination aspire not to please or to elevate, but to astonish and bewilder by exaggeration and fable. ”

“ Carey could understand now why Sinharat was tabu. It was not only because of an ancient dread. It was the city itself, now, in the sharp sunlight or under the gliding moons. It was a small city. There had never been more than perhaps three thousand Ramas, and this remote little island had given them safety and room enough. But they had built close, and high. The streets ran like topless tunnels between the walls and the towers reached impossibly thin and tall into the sky. Some of them had lost their upper storeys and some had fallen entirely, but in the main they were still beautiful. ”

“ A fresh company were said to have been invited in the reign of Devenipiatissa, and were the progenitors of "Saleas, at present called Chalias," who inhabit the country between Galle and Colombo, and who, along with their ostensible occupation as peelers of cinnamon, still employ themselves in the labours of the loom. [1] All handicrafts are conventionally regarded by the Singhalese as the occupations of an inferior class; and a man of high caste would submit to any privation rather than stoop to an occupation dependent on manual skill. ”

“ The Singhalese proper make very good mechanics, and can imitate a delicate model when submitted to them, equaling the Chinese, whose fidelity in this respect has passed into a proverb. They are specially expert in the manufacture of wooden boxes from choice material, inlaid with ivory, tortoise shell, mother of pearl, and the like; but above all else they pride themselves as a people upon being agriculturists, a planter's occupation being considered as fitting for the highest caste to engage in. It is in the cultivation of broad rice-fields that the Singhalese is seen at his best. ”

“ Stas replied.
"Then she is still a child— Let Nasibu give you tea, rice, coffee, and wine for her. Take of the supplies whatever you want, and to-morrow come for more."
"I shall surely return to thank you once more from my whole heart and help you in whatever I can."
And Linde said:
"It is good even to gaze at a European face. If you had come earlier I would have been more conscious. Now the fever is taking hold of me, for I see double. Are there two of you above me? No, I know that you are alone and that this is only the fever. Ah! this Africa!" ”