CHAPTER V.BRITISH LAW-COURTS AND BUDDHIST TEMPLES.
Kurunégala.—I have come to the conclusion that the courts and judicial proceedings out here are a kind of entertainment provided for the oysters at the expense of the British Government, and that the people really look upon these institutions very much in that light. Poor things! their ancient communal life and interests, with all the local questions and politics which belonged thereto, and even to a great extent the religious festivals, have been improved away; they have but few modern joys—no votes and elections such as would delight our friend Monerasingha—no circuses, theatres, music-halls. What is there left for them but the sensations of the police-courts? The district court here is, I find, the one great centre of interest in the town. Crowds collect in the early morning, and hang about all day in its vicinity, either watching the cases or discussing the judgments delivered, till sunset, when they disperse homeward again. Cooling drinks are sold, beggars ply their trade, the little bullock-hackeries trot up and down, and the place is as busy as a fair. There is no particular stigma in conviction by an alien authority; there is a happy uncertainty in the judgments delivered by the representatives of a race that has difficulty in understanding the popularcustoms and language; and the worst that can happen—namely relegation to prison life—affords a not unpleasant prospect. Besides, these institutions can be used to gratify personal spleen; cases can be, and frequently are, cooked up in the most elaborate manner. Damages can be claimed for a fictitious assault; and when an injury has really been done, the plaintiff (and this I find is a constantly recurring difficulty) will accuse not only the author of the mischief, but Tom, Dick, and Harry besides, who have had nothing whatever to do with it, but who are the objects of personal spite, in the hope of getting them too into trouble. The Cinghalese, as I have said before, are a very sensitive people. Any grievance rankles in their bosom, and in revenge they will not unfrequently use the knife. An Eurasian friend, a doctor, says that he quite thinks casesmight occur in which a man who had been wounded or assaulted by another woulddie out of spitein order to get the other hanged!—would connive with his relations and starve himself, and not try to heal the wound. He says however that the cases of ruptured spleen—of which we so frequently hear—are genuine, as frequent fevers often cause immense enlargement of the spleen, which then bursts for a comparatively slight cause,e.g.a planter and a stick.
BULLOCK-HACKERY, COLOMBO.
BULLOCK-HACKERY, COLOMBO.
The courts in this country are generally large thatched or tiled halls, sometimes with glass sides, but often open to the wind, with only a low wall running round, over which, as you sit inside, a crowd of bare arms and heads and bodies appears. At one end sits the English official, dutifully but wearily going through his task, a big punkah waving over his head and helping to dispel the slumbrous noontide heat; below him stands themudaliar, who acts as interpreter—for the etiquette properly enough requires that the transactions of the court shall be given in both languages, even though the official be a native or an Englishman knowing the native language perfectly; at the table in the centre are seated a few reporters and proctors, and at the other end are the prisoners in the dock, and the policemen in their boots.
The cases are largely quarrels, and more or less unfounded accusations arising out of quarrels, thefts of bullocks or of coco-nuts, and so forth. The chief case when I was in court some days ago was rather amusing. A few days before, three or four men, having been accused, possibly wrongfully, of burglary, and having (on account of insufficientevidence) been acquitted, went off straight from the court to an arrack shop and got drunk. They then made it up between them that they would rob the man thoroughly that evening, even if they had not done so before, and give him a good hiding into the bargain; and taking to themselves some other congenial spirits went off on their errand. They found the man asleep in the verandah of his cabin, and tying him down gave him some blows. But—as it came out in the evidence with regard to the very slight marks on the body—before they could have hurt him much, the man, with great presence of mind, died, and left them charged with the crime of murder! An old woman—the man’s mother—with a beautiful face, butshaking with age, came forward to give evidence. She said she was nearly 100 years old, though the evidence on this point was not very clear. Anyhow, her head was remarkably clear, and she gave her testimony well; identified several of the prisoners, said they had broken into the cabin and carried off valuables, and that one, the leader, had motioned her into a corner of the cabin, saying, “Stand aside, old mother, or you’ll get hurt,” while another had come up to her and said, “I think I had better take those bangles from you, as they are no good to you now, you know.” There wereninemen charged with the offence, and they were committed for trial in a higher court—very decent-looking scaramouches on the whole, just about average types of humanity.
The English officials that I have seen here and at other places strike me as remarkably good-hearted painstaking men; but one feels the gulf betweenthem and the people—a gulf that can never be bridged. Practically all that a Government like ours does, or can do, is to make possible the establishment of our social institutions in the midst of an alien people—our railways, education, Bible missions, hospitals, law-courts, wage-slavery, and profit-grinding, and all the rest of it, in the midst of a people whose whole life springs from another root, namely religious feeling. The two will never blend, though the shock produced by the contact of two such utterly different civilisations may react on both, to the production of certain important results. Anyhow for a well-meaning official it must be depressing work; for though he may construct a valuable tank, or what not, from the highest motives according to his own lights—i.e.for the material welfare of the people and the realisation of a five per cent. profit to Government—still he never comes near touching the hearts of the millions, who would probably pay much more respect to a half-lunyyogithan to him and all his percentages.
A.’s friend, Sámanáthan, comes to read English with me every day, and teaches me a little Tamil in return. He is something of a dandy, with his green silk coat and hair plaited down his back, and delicate hands and manners—a fellow over thirty, with a wife and children, and yet not earning any livelihood, but remaining on at home with his parents, and dependent on them! And what seems to us most strange, this is quite an admitted and natural thing to do—such is the familiar communism which still prevails. He is very much of a student by nature, and in his native town (in India) gives lectures,philosophical and theological, free of charge, and which are quite popular. He is reading S. Mark with me, and reads it pretty well, being evidently familiar even with the more philosophical words, though doubtful about the pronunciation of some. He is interested in the story of Jesus, and thinks Jesus was no doubt a “sage”—i.e.an adept—or at any rate versed in the arcane lore of the East. But he is much amused at the Christian doctrine of the redemption, which I suppose he has got hold of, not from Mark but the missionaries.
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On the 10th of this month (January), F. Modder and I went off on an excursion from here to Dambulla (35 miles), and thence to Anurádhapura (42 miles). Dambulla is celebrated for its Buddhist rock-temples, and Anurádhapura is the site of a very ancient city, now in ruins amid the jungle.
Despite all sorts of reports about the length of the journey and its difficulty—the chief difficulty being that of getting any exact information—M. managed to secure a bullock-cartwith springs, and two pairs of bullocks; and we made a start about 6.30 p.m. A mattress in the cart and a pillow or two made all comfortable. We sat and talked for a couple of hours, then walked, and then went to sleep. With an average speed oftwomiles an hour we reached the rest-house at Gokarella at midnight, changed bulls, and immediately went on. Another six hours brought us to the house of a Government medical practitioner—a Cinghalese—where we got an early breakfast, and finally we reached Dr. Devos’ house, at Dambulla, about midday.
CINGHALESE COUNTRY-CART.(Thatched with palm-branches.)
CINGHALESE COUNTRY-CART.(Thatched with palm-branches.)
CINGHALESE COUNTRY-CART.
(Thatched with palm-branches.)
The little bulls went patiently on during the night, the Tamil driver chirruping “Jack” and “Pitta” to them (corresponding to our carters’ “Orve” and “Gee,”) which some cheerful English traveler is said to have interpreted into the statement that the natives of Ceylon call all their cattle either Jack or Peter; the stars shone bright—the Milky Way innumerable. The road was bad, with occasional descents into dry sandy torrent beds; jungle stretched all around (with here and there, M. says, the remains of some town buried in undergrowth); but we slept—M. slept, I slept, the driver slept, and occasionally even the good little bulls slept. Once or twice we came thus to a total stoppage, all sleeping, and then woke up at the unwonted quiet.
Just the first light of dawn, and a few strangebird-calls in the bush; the greatficustrees with their mighty buttresses stretching white stems up into the yet ghostly light; ant-hills, conical and spired, all along the road-side; tangles of creepers, and then, as the sun rose, quantities of butterflies. I know nothing of butterflies, but the kinds in this country are very various and beautiful. There is one which is very common, about four inches across, black and white, with body a bright red, and underwing spotted with the same colour—very handsome; and one day, when taking a sun-bath in the woods, an immense swallow-tail hovered round me, fully ten inches across from tip to tip of wings.
Modder is a cheerful fellow, of Dutch descent probably, of about thirty years of age, a proctor or solicitor for native cases, well up in Cinghalese and Tamil, and full of antiquarian knowledge, yet can troll a comic song nicely with a sweet voice. I find he is a regular democrat, and hates the whole caste system in which he lives embedded—thinks the U.S. must be “a glorious country.” He says he has often talked to the Tamil and Cinghalese people about the folly of caste. At first they can’t understand what he means—are completely at a loss to imagine anything different, but after a time the idea seems to take hold on them.
Found Devos at Dambulla—a fine clear-faced man of about thirty-three, genuine, easy-going, carrying on a hospital in this slightly populated district—just a large native village, no more—but the mails come through this way, and a few English on their way to Anurádhapura, and other places. Gangs of Tamil coolies also, from the mainland ofIndia, pass through Dambulla in going up country, and have to be medically examined here, for fear of cholera, etc. Living with Devos are two younger fellows, Percy Carron, who is also an Eurasian, and a Cinghalese youth, both foresters—a small easy-going bachelors’ household, and all very chummy together. Thought they also treated their Tamil “boy” John well—actually called him by his name, and did not shout at him. These fellows all talk English among themselves, in a close-lipped, rapid, rather neat way. The other two chaffed the Cinghalese a good deal, who was of the usual sensitive clinging type.
In the afternoon we went up the rock to see the temples. A great rock, 500 or 600 feet high, similar to that at Kurunégala. Half-way up stretches a broad ledge, 100 yards long, commanding a fine view over hill and dale, and between this ledge and an overhanging layer of rock above are niched five temples all in a row. No façade to speak of, mere stucco walling, but within you pass into large caverns full of rude statues. The largest of the temples is 150 feet long, 40 deep, and 23 high in front—a great dark space with perhaps fifty colossal images of Buddha sitting round in the gloom with their sickly smile of Nirvana, and one huge figure, 30 or 40 feet long, lying down in illumined sleep; all crudely done, and painted bright yellows and reds, yet rather impressive. The sides too and roof of the cavern are frescoed in the same crude manner with stories from the life of Buddha, and with figures of the Hindu gods. Withal, a fusty smell, a thousand years old, of priests none too clean, of flaringoil-lamps, of withered flowers and stale incense, oppressed us horribly, and it was the greatest relief to get out again into the open. Devos says the scene is very striking at the great festivals, when multitudinous pilgrims assemble and offer their lights and their flowers and their money, on benches each before the figure they affect. Tomtoms beat, worshipers recite their prayers, lights twinkle, and outside the light of the full moon pours down upon the rock. Monkeys native to the rock are fed on this ledge in hundreds by the priests.
Ceylon is of course mainly Buddhist, and all over the hilly part of the island rock-temples of this sort, though smaller, are scattered—some mere shrines with a single seated or recumbent image of Buddha. They are commonly built among the woods, under some overhanging brow of rock, and the story generally runs that the cavern had in earlier times been occupied by some hermit-saint, oryogi, and that the temple was built in remembrance of him. There is a little one of this kind half-way up the rock at Kurunégala, and it is tended by a boy priest of about thirteen years of age, who, barehead and barefoot, but with his yellow priest-robe wound gracefully about him, attends in a dignified manner to the service of the shrine. He is generally followed by a little attendant (every one has an attendant in the East)—a small boy of about nine—who turns out to be hiskhoki, or cook! This sounds luxurious, but by rule the Buddhist priests should live the most abstemious lives. They are supposed to have no money or possessions of their own, and to be entirely celibate. Each morning they go outwith their begging bowls on their arm to get their daily food. They go to a house and stand near the door, asking nothing. Then presently the woman comes out and puts a little rice in the bowl, and the priest goes on to the next house. When he has got sufficient he returns, and his attendant cooks the food (if not already cooked) and he eats it. For each priest has the privilege to choose a boy or youth to be his attendant, whom he trains up to the priesthood, and who takes his place after him. This perhaps explains the presence of the small boykhokiabove.
The Buddhist priests, like the Hindu priests, are drawn mostly from the comparatively uneducated masses, but there is no need in their case that they should be Brahmans. A vast tolerance, and gentleness towards all forms of life, characterises the Buddhist institutions; but in the present day in Ceylon the institutions are decadent, and the priests, with a few exceptions, are an ignorant and incapable set. The efforts of Col. Olcott however, on behalf of the Theosophical Society, and of Sumángala, the present high priest of the island, a man of great learning and gentleness, have done something in latest years to infuse a new spirit into the Buddhism of Ceylon and to rehabilitate its esoteric side.
At Kandy in one of the Buddhist temples outside the town there is astandingfigure of Buddha twenty-seven feet high, carved in the face of the solid rock, and the temple built round it—rather fine—though with the usual crude red and yellow paint. It belongs to the time of the kings of Kandy, and is only about 150 years old. Many of the ordinarycave-temples are extremely old, however—as old as Buddhism in the island, 2,000 years or more—and likely were used for religious purposes even before that.
After looking at the Dambulla temples, which are said to have been constructed by the king Walagambahu about 100B.C., we gained the summit of the rock, whence you have a view over plains towards the sea and of ranges of hills inland, not unlike that from the rock at Kurunégala; and then descended, not without difficulty, the precipitous side. Evening fell, and darkies came out with lamps to our aid.
The same night I pushed on by mail-coach to Anurádhapura, leaving Modder behind, as he unfortunately had to return to Kurunégala the next day.