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"The man who acts the part of the devil is dressed in a
garment of dried grass or rushes which reaches to the ground. His arms
and his feet are concealed, a white country cloth covers his
shoulders. Round his head and under his chin are two or three cotton
handkerchiefs. The face is frightful. The mouth and nose are black.
Two large teeth project far beyond the lips. A row of coarse shells is
bound over the eyes. On the head is a red cap which reaches four or
five feet in height."
Now here we get the Buddhism of the North, as it is called, face to
face with the Buddhism of the South. In the Tântrika Rites of Nepal,
as Mr. Hodgson calls them, offerings of flesh and spirits and warm
blood are made to the "Balis." A mummer
in a mask of Bhairava impersonates the god. Here also is a mummer
impersonating the "Bali." The word "Bali" means
literally a sacrifice, but in Nepal and also in Ceylon it is used to
denote the sorcerers as well. The "devil" in Nepal is called
Bhairava. In Ceylon he has two enormous teeth, and turning to Mr.
Upham's plates I find that the demon so furnished (See Plate
21) is called Coola Kumara. Kumara is S’iva's son, and dancing
before the altar a S’ivan rite.
All the Cingalese, including the Buddhist hierarchy,
admit that above Buddha there is a superior God, Saman-deva-râja.
This God, says Mr. Upham, is called Saman from Samane Galle (Adam's
Peak), "where he is now living with his deities with power over
Ceylon" (p. 51).
There he stands upon the Minne Phalange or Seat of Supremacy given
to him at the death of Buddha. There grows the immortal Tavateinza
Tree. Around him are myriads of "divine nâgas of mighty
power," rendered orthodox formerly by Buddha, and he has moreover
the sacred White Elephant which is Buddha reincarnate.
These "devas" watch to cure the sick and to preserve men
from incurring losses in their goods, and are represented as residing
on the peaks of their high mountains whence they inspect, govern and
exercise a tutelary superintendence over their favourite districts.
The Buddhist Church make a virtue of necessity and officially adopt
the devils, in the matter of the cure of disease. They say that Buddha
gave that faculty to Kumara.
"The natives of Ceylon," says Mr. Upham, "show the
demons honours and make offerings, because they fear that demons can
visit human beings with sickness; and therefore they in cases of
sickness invoke them and make offerings of money, also of boiled and
unboiled meats, and cause the throat, arms, legs and body of the sick
to be tied by the Bali conjurers with necklaces or threads (amulets)
dyed yellow with saffron water" (p. 66).
It must be remembered, too, that Bhairava judges the dead and
consigns some
to the jewelled palaces of his Kailâs, and others to
regions which, as depicted in Mr. Upham's book, show red demons
beating sinners with red-hot clubs and hammers, as they lie in beds of
flame. All this scarcely describes a few belated Nâgas beating
tom-toms and selling gambouge amulets in sly corners. If the Buddhists
of Ceylon turn to S’iva and his Devas in business, in sickness, in
affliction—if they use him to direct their happiness on earth and
their hope in the hereafter—there is little wonder that the altars
of the Devalayas are thronged, and those of the Buddhists are
deserted.
And now let us pause and take stock of what we have discovered in
the Island of Ceylon. Simply that there, as in other Buddhist
countries, the religion is the religion of S’iva-Buddha. S’iva is
the acknowledged divine Ruler. The foul rites of the Vâmâcharîs,
the left-handed Tântrikas, are the only rites that any of the
Cingalese seem to care anything about.
Now there are two explanations of all this, the one furnished by
Hiouen Tsiang, the Chinese Buddhist, namely that the Great Vehicle (or
S’iva Buddhism) effected a complete revolution in the religion of
S’âkya Muni in Ceylon about the epoch of the Christian era. The
second is that the religion of Ceylon is the pure and unadulterated
religion of S’âkya Muni, but as popular superstitions are difficult
to completely eradicate some of the old Nâgas, or Serpent
Worshippers, who were supreme in the island before its conversion by
Buddha, still perform on the sly some of their ancient rites.
In fact, once more upsprings the Barnacle theory, the Nâgas are
mere barnacles quite outside the ship. 
But are they outside the ship? Plainly one of the barnacles has taken
command of it. Bishop Copleston notices the "Wytulian
heretics," and their attempt to mix up Buddhism and the religions
of the South of India. And he tries to account for this heresy:—
From early times hordes of Hindus have fled to the island from
their oppressors. Also the native kings have sought their brides in
India, and selected Tamil soldiers for their body-guard. And in point
of fact the civilisation of Ceylon itself was due to India. But with
all due respect to the learned Bishop I think he scarcely appreciates
the puzzle. It is not whether individuals on the Island of Ceylon in
the old days had, or had not, opportunities of studying other
religions besides the official creed. The puzzle is that a powerful
hierarchy, for according to the French Bishop Bigandet, Ceylon had a
hierarchy as effectively organised, and very like that of the
Christians; the puzzle is that this hierarchy should have allowed
their beatified Saint to be pushed off his pedestal, and a novel god
to be placed there, and that god to be worshipped with human
sacrifices, cannibalism, and Bacchanalian orgies, the very rites that
S’âkya Muni had spent eighty years in trying to eradicate.
Such a vast change must have come from above, not below.
Hierarchies are accustomed to turn a deaf ear to the reasonings of
individuals. At Nalanda, near Buddha Gaya, was the Achârya, the
acknowledged pope of the Buddhists—the Mahâwanso calls him the
"High Priest of all the world." Now the invaluable Hiouen
Tsiang gives us a hint of what might have occurred. He says that
Kanis’ka wanted to adopt high-handed measures with his convocation
or council, and force this high priest to let it sit at Nalanda,
though that prelate and his ten thousand monks were strongly opposed
to the proposed changes. But Parsvika, the prime minister, suggested
caution and urged that it was safer to hold the convocation in his own
dominions.
"Many conflicting opinions will be expressed, and we shall not
have time to answer and refute them. The whole convocation is attached
to this kingdom. Why compose S’âstras? Your realms are defended on
all sides by high mountains under the guardianship of Yakshas." *
Is it stretching a point to say that the high-handed monarch,
although he yielded on this occasion, still exerted a pressure which
was by-and-bye successful?
In point of fact, the religion of Ceylon is a vast cosmical
amalgamation. A and B, let us say, are carrying C in a rickshaw. A has
been a shining Deva in Tavateinza, wearing a golden crown shaped like
the pinnacle of a temple, but his Karma being exhausted and his moral
nature deteriorated, he has come to earth as a punishment. B was a
banker in one of the stars that whirls round a distant sun in the
Milky Way, only just discernible with the largest telescope at
Greenwich. But certain faults in his accounts have brought him
likewise to the Karma of carrying heavy people about in rickshaws. C
in his last rebirth was in hell, and was beaten by red demons with
heavy clubs, but he bowed to the Chaitya, or Lingam, several thousand
times, and the Karma of this good action makes him now an elegant
young prince receiving the saalam of the crowd as he passes along.
There is no death, only change. The Kosmos is a vast penitentiary.
Buddha, it is said, was once a Yaksha, a foul corpse-eating ghoul. And
as Mr. Upham tells us, he was once Sekkraia, the God Indra, and he
"ruled the Tavateinza heavens with thirty-two Nat-devas as his
Counsellors." †
Then again he was plainly Yama-râjah, the Lord of Hell, in the
splendid parable of the plague-stricken pig. In fact, in Ceylon, as
elsewhere, S’ivism deals very cavalierly with Indian gods. S’iva
in one legend knocked off one of Brahma's four heads; and in the life
of Buddha, Brahmâ, with a funny parasol, is made into a comic
character, during Buddha's great struggle with Mara the tempter.
"Maha Brahmâ offers flowers to the cloth that cleans my
feet." * Dr. Rhys
Davids tells us that Buddha had been six times on the earth as Brahma,
and the Tibetans have "Buddha devils" in their hells. In
point of fact, the lines that mark off hell from heaven, and a
corpse-eating Yaksha from a bright Deva with a golden crown have been
a little obliterated by time. Saman Deva Râjah, although he is
Bhairava, or what we call "evil" in the divine economy, sits
in a palace at times in the Tavateinza Heavens amongst the elect, and
Sekkraia, who is Nature in her most benign aspects, has to put on the
mask of Yama-râjah, the Lord of Hell, and judge the dead.
But we now come to a graver question. What is the "Inebriating
Festival of the Buddha?" (p. 56). Mr. Upham himself is aghast at
this question, and although he knows nothing of our S’iva-Buddha
theories, visions of foul Bacchantic mysteries in Babylon and Eleusis
float before his eyes.
Indians prefer fables to Athanasian Creeds for religious
instruction. The story runs that Deva Râjah, the Lord of Hell, cast
his eyes on a man of renowned probity named Mâga, and was astounded
to note that this man with thirty-two followers was constantly
levelling the roads for the Great Buddha, Dipankara, to pass—an
infallible token that he was about to become the new Buddha himself.
To frustrate this the demon hatched an infamous plot. He invited him
to the initiatory Bacchantic Festival, that afterwards got to be
called the "Inebriating Festival of the Buddha." A "Japani"
(some mess of rice) was prepared, steeped in the juice of the
inebriating tree. Mâga, who was S’âkya Muni, came with his
thirty-two followers, but scenting the deceit, only made a pretence of
eating, and made Deva Rajah and his followers blind drunk. He then
drove him and his Yakshas out of hell. Here we have, without doubt,
Buddha's descent into Hell, an experience which was a prominent point
of all the old Bacchantic Mysteries. It is added that Buddha being
compassionate, caused a floating island called Jak Girri to come, and
upon that he installed the Yakshas. *
I will show later on from five bas reliefs of the Amarâvatî Tope
now at the British Museum, that this story must have been much valued
in the Buddhist Kingdoms in touch with Nalanda. And Mr. Upham shows
plainly that Tappooism, even when supervised by English or Dutch
magistrates, had pregnant secrets. Why did Mr. Fox's native attendant
show such fear when his master proposed to approach the Devil dancers?
Why did those gruesome ghosts fade away into the enshrouding night?
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These
skulls the "Tamil Doctor" obtained, sometimes by murder, at
others by the baby farming of his wife. The man got away, but left
behind him a book containing various charms and invocations, all
addressed to "S’iva the Destroyer," suitable for every
imaginable purpose.
