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AUGUST, 1903.)
GLIMPSES OF SINGHALESE SOCIAL LIFE.
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visit the neighbouring temples, meditate, teach the village children and read bana at mid-day and at night. Before they are conducted back to the monastery (pansala) they are presented by the people with a web of cloth to make their robes, each one contributing something to purchase it; strictly this had to be woven of cotton pods collected by the villagers at dawn, and the priests had to stitch their robes and dye thom yellow (pandu povanavd) on the same day (kaține).
About once a year, at the request of the inhabitants, select discourses of Buddha (pirit) 15 are read in Pali by the priests for a period of seven days for the protection of the village against the malignant influence of demons and elementals, and all the people flock to the service. A circular thatched building, open at the sides and with a raised floor, is pat op by them and decorated with cocoanut and areca flowers. A table, with a sacred relic, is placed in the centre, with two reading chairs by it and other seats placed around. On the first day an array of priests come to the building and take their places, while two of them from the reading pulpits chant some preparatory stanzas. Resin is next barnt by the laymen present, and the monks go in procession round the interior of the building, and, while reciting a few verses wishing prosperity and protection, fasten a sacred cord (pirit núla) attached to the relic to the posts round the platform, pass it through the reading chairs, and place the remainder twined on the table. At daybreak the next day the priests again assemble, and two of them, as before, commence reading a series of sermons; as they end, all chant in chorus the Ratana, Mangala, and Karaniya Sútras, holding the cord untwined. After this recital they leave the building, except two, who continue the reading over and over again ; and the latter are relieved by a couple of others every two hours. The rest join them for the grand chant at mid-day and sunset, and before they enter the platform a pions layman washes and wipes their feet. The pirit is continued day and night without intermission till the sixth day, when a new series of discourses is introduced; the choras chant, however, is not altered.
On the morning of the seventh day a procession starts from the temple with a messenger (dévadutayd) dressed like a Singhalese chief seated on an elephant. He carries a letter (kadapana) to the nearest dévdla inviting the gods residing there to come and listen to the exhortation to be given to them that night. If no dê dla is close by, the letter is taken and fixed to a tree where gods are supposed to reside, very often to the Ficus religiosa. Till the party returns the reading is suspended; when the messenger arrives, he stands at the entrance facing the priests, and, with his hands on each door-post, recites a long exhortation (dorokadaasna). At the end, for his creditable feat of memory, his friends and relatives present him with cloth and ola manuscripts. Lastly, the sermon of Buddha, called the Atándļia, is recited by the priests, four at a time, till the morning of the eighth day, to chase away the evil spirits who are thought to have assembled to hear the exhortation. Water and oil that have been placed on the platform in earthen pots are considered consecrated after the ceremony, and are sparingly distributed to the assembly. The pirit service is also performed on a smaller scale in private houses for the benefit of a family.
The island has a number of sacred places connected with Buddha scattered over all parts of it, which are regularly visited by pilgrims for the accumulation of merit.
In Kandy is deposited the Sacred Tooth. Adam's Peak has on a slab his foot-print, a saperficial hollow 5 ft. long and 2 ft. wide ; legends say that precious stones are found lying on the path to it which none dares to pick ap, and that however large or however small the cloth taken as an offering be, it exactly covers the sacred stone. There is in Anuradhapura tho sacred Bo-tree, an offshoot of the tree under which Buddha attained enlightenment, tho Thuparama Dagoba enshrining his right collar-bone, the Selechaittiya Dagoba raised over
16 Vide (a) The Friend (Second Series, 1880), Vol. X. pp. 33, 79 and 181.
(6) Ceylon Asiatio Society's Journal, 1887, Vol. VIIT., No. 29, p. 297.
