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JULY, 1903.)
GLIMPSES OF SINGHALESE SOCIAL LIFE.
309
Eight days after the New Year is the ceremony of anointing the head. Ap infusion of kokun leaves (Swietenia febrifugia), kalandurn yams (Cyprus rotundus), and nelli fruits(Phylanthus emblica) is mixed with oil, and an elder of the family rabs a little of it on the two temples, on the crown of the head, and on the nape of the neck of each member, saying: -
Kalu kaputan sudu venaturu Ehela kana liyalana taru Gerandianta an enatoru Ekasiya vissata desiya viasak Maha Brahma Rajaya atinya
Åyi bôvan âyibôvan ayibovan. “This (anointing) is done by the hand of Maha Brahman; long life to you, long life to
yon, long life to you! may you, instead of the ordinary period of life, vix., 120 years, live for 220 years; till rat-snakes obtain horns, till posts of the Ehela tree (Cassia
fistula) pat on young shoots, and till black crows put on a plumage white." While being anointed the person faces a particular direction, having over his head leaves sacred to the ruling planet of the day, and at his feet those sacred to the Begent of the previous day. For each of the days of the week, beginning with Sunday, belong respectively the cotton tree (imbul), the wood-apple (ditul), the Cochin gamboge (kollan), the margosa (kohomba), the holy fig-tree (bo), Galidupa arborea (baranda) and the banyan (nuga).
This rite is followed by the wearing of new clothes, after a bath in an infusion of screwpine (wetake), Luffa acutangula (wetakolu), Evolvulus alsinoides (Vishnu-krantı), Artistolochia indica (sapsanda), Crinum zeylanicum (goda-mánęl), roots of citron (nasāran mul), root of Ægle marmelos (belimul), stalk of lotus (nelum dandu), Plectranthus zeylanicus (irivériya), Cissompelos convolvulas (getaveni-vel), Heterepogon hirtns (ftana), and bezoar stone (gorôchana).
This festival is also observed at the Buddhist temples? when milk is boiled at their entrances and sprinkled on the floor.
The Singhalese lunar year commences in March and the Solar year about the end of April; on both these occasions the new moon is gaxed at, and the eyes immediately after diverted to a plate of kiribat and other sweets, or to the face of a kind and well-to-do relative, who is sometimes kissed.
The birthday of the Founder of Buddhism is celebrated on the full-moon day of May (wesāk). Streets are lined with bamboo arches, which are decorated with the young leaves of the cocoanut palm; tall supertructures (toran) gaily adorned with ferns, and young kingcocoanata bridge highways at intervals; lines of flags of various devices and shapes are drawn from tree to tree; booths are erected at every crossing where hospitality is freely dispensed to passers-by; and at every rich house the poor are fed and alms given to Buddhist priests. Processions' wend their way from one temple to another with quaintly-shaped pepnons and banners, and in answer to the deafening music of the tom-toms, cries of Sadhu, Sadha, the Buddhist Amen, rise from hundreds of throats.
Three festivals connected with local deities are held in the month of Esala (JulyAngust) at Kandy in the centre of Ceylon, at Dondra in the South, and at Kataragama in the South-East.
The Kandy Perahera Mangalaya, of whose origin nothing is certain, begins at a lucky hour on the first day after the new moon. "A Jack-tree, the stem of which is three spans in circumference, is selected beforehand for each of the four déwala - the Kataragama, Natha,
3 For particulars, wide Asiatio Society's Journal of Ceylon (1888), Vol. VII. p. 32. . For full description of a Singhalene procession, vide Coylon Literary Register (1887), Vol. II. p. 348.
