198 



KAXDY AXD PERADEXIA. 



[Part VII. 



soiled elephants, is spiritless and uniniprossive, if con- 

 trasted witli occasions within memory, wlien it was 

 hallowed by the divine presence of a king,^ 



At the present day nothing can be less oljtrusive 

 than the Buddliist worship, or less ostentations than 

 the demeanonr of its priesthood. One is only re- 

 minded of their vicinity when, at snnset or in tlie 

 early morning, the silence is broken by the noise of 

 tom-toms and the plaintive notes of tlie Ante, mingled 

 Avith the discordant blare of the chank shells, which 

 are sounded as an accompaniment to the melancholy 

 chaunting of their choir. 



But the most remarkable object at Kandy is un- 

 questionably the dalada, asserted to be the " sacred 

 tooth " of Briddha, which for so many centuries lias 

 commanded the imreasonino; homage of milhons of de- 

 votees. An allusion has been elsewhere made to tlie 

 traditional history of this relic ^, its rescue from the 

 flames after the cremation of the mortal remains of 

 Gotania Buddlia at Kusinara, B.C. 543, and its pre- 

 servation for eight hundred years at Dantapura in 

 Kalinga, whence it was brought to Ceylon in the foiu'th 

 century after Christ.^ It was afterwards cajitm-ed by 

 the Malabars about the year 1315, and again carried 

 to India, but recovered by the prowess of Prakrama 

 Bahu III. During tlie troublous times which followed, 

 the original tooth was hidden in difTerent parts of the 

 island, at Kandy, at Delgamoa in Saffragam, and at 



' An account of the Pera-hara, 

 and the historical event which it 

 commemorates, will be fomid in 

 T7ie Friend, published at Colombo 

 in 1830, vol. iii. p. 41. A descrip- 

 tion of tlie procession as it was 

 celebrated two centuries ap-o, is con- 

 tained in the trutliful narrative of 

 Kxox, pt. iii. ch. iv. p. 7S. 



2 See Vol. I. rt. Tii. cli. ix. p. 888. 



^ A.D. ^)\\, 3Iah(iW(niso, ch. xxxvii. 

 p. 241 ; Itajarali, p. 240. ^I.vn axajio, 

 who AVi'ote his portion of tlie Maha- 

 iranso, between a.d. 451) and 477, 



quotes as liis authority for tlie his- 

 tory of tlie tooth, a work which is 

 extant to the present day, called the 

 I)(i/(if!ii-irri)iso, or ('hroniclc of the 

 DalmJa, and from it and other 

 sources TuRXorR drew the matei-ials 

 for a memoir, which he communi- 

 cated in 18.'»7 to the Asiatic Societv 

 of Benp-al, ou " Tlie Tooth-relic of 

 Ceiflon,'''' Asiat. Sac. Jonni. lieuf/., 

 vol. \\. p. 8o(i. Forbes puljlished a 

 paper on tlie history of tlie tooth, 

 in the Cei/lon Cdh-itdnr for 18:5.5. 



