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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
Mala Raja (Malalu Kumaru). A mythical hero, said to have been created from a flower (mala) by a Rşi near whose hermitage Sitâ lived in exile, and to have been given by Him to her as her child (gee Sita). By a device of Säkra he was led to pursue Râhu disguised as a wild boar, whom he followed into Ceylon; there, with 36 Vali Yakas and 36 Vädi chieftaing, he healed Panduvas of the "divi dos". [Pala-väla-danê, Oddisaupata, Ata-magula-áântiya, Vädi-yak-yadinna, Maha-asné, Vijayindu-hatanê.) Rahu was sent in the disguise of a boar to Elu-dvipa. He broke the rock-wall and wasted the orchard of the Mala Raja, who shot an arrow at him. The boar rushed into the Blood Lake (Lê-vila), and thence led on its pursuers from Nanda-pura to Ceylon. At Ura-gala (Pig-rock) they killed him; he then appeared in his true form, and told the Mala Raja why he had decoyed him thither. [Kadavara-vidiya.] The brothers Mala Raja, Kit-siri, and Sandalindu are sometimes styled Tun Bä Mala Nirindu, the Three Brother Mala Kings, and are said to have collectively healed the divi dos of Panduvas and turned Kande (Irugal) Bandara and Kohomba Raja into Yakas. [Irugal-bandara-kavi.] The Malalukumaru-kavi describes M. R. as a Bodhi-sattva and lord of the world, who receives offer ings throughout Ceylon. The usual story of the birth of the 3 brothers is given (see Sita). Whilst still boys, they hunted wild beasts, and destroyed elephants, chariots, and armies. Their father therefore sent them out of the land. They sailed away in a stone ship with 4 gateways; Vaduru Ma-kali, Kalu vara Devata, Vasala Bandara, and Gini Kurum bura were the deities who had charge of the eastern, southern, northern, and south-eastern entrances, and Kambili Kadavara accompanied them. They crossed the Milk Sea, and came to the shore of the Dumb Sea (south-eastern Ceylon). The gods of Ceylon opposed their landing, but M. R. tore into two pieces Virâ, one of them, and made good his landing. He heals smallpox and leprosy. He took Kohomba into his retinue when the latter was 7 years old. Sacrifices of food cooked by a priest and young girls are offered to him in a bower 3 cubits broad and 21 in height, adorned with flowers and fruits; a dead tree is placed near the door and an offering fastened to it. Thus propitiated, he will heal sickness and avert trouble. [Kosamba-upata.] He protects Amu-siri Kaçavara; he took part in the rite of the arrow to heal Mal-gara (see Arrow); dwells in the leopard's skull used in the rite of Ata Magula, q. v. ; made Irugal Bandara (q. v.) a Yaka; gave the Kadavaras leave to come to Ceylon, and had a Kada vara as his chief officer (see Kadavara); turned Koho mba Raja (q. v.) into a Yaka, and took him into his train. He is in voked, with 12 Väddas armed with spears, and with 7,000 kelas of Väddas, in Divi-dos-santiya. See also Divi Dos, Jivahatta, Kuvéni, Panduvas, Vijaya, Wooden Peacock. There was a sanctuary of Mala Raja on the Santâna or Hantâna hill near Kandy, where he passed in his chase of the Boar.
Mala-upan Yakşaya. See Ratikan.
Mal-bali. The origin and form of this "flower-sacrifice" are described in M.-6.-upata. A Licchavi king of Baranäs had 500 wives and some 60,000 children. The children once bathed in a pool in a forest. The eldest boy bathed apart from the rest near a nuga fig-tree, and was seized by the demon who lived in it. He fell, seemingly lifeless. The wise men made 9 receptacles of pieces of plantain, into which they put offerings of flowers etc. to the Nine Planets, viz. orange-coloured rice and leaves of the silk-cotton tree on the east for the Sun, golden rice and karanda (galidupa 'arborea ?) leaves on the south-east for Sikura, red rice and leaves of Nauclea cordifolia 'on the south for Angaharu, pandanus leaves and rice cooked with sesame in milk on the south-west for Rahu, blue rice and banyan leaves on the west for Senasuru, boiled pulse and leaves of the wood apple (Feronia elephantum)
