Chap. V.] 



THE SACRED TOOTH. 



201 



advised, there had not been two set up to be adored by 

 so many people." ^ 



The incidents of tliis narrative are too minute, and 

 their credibility is estabhshed by too many contemporary 

 and concurrent authorities ^, to admit of any doubt that 

 the authenticity of tlie tooth now preserved in the Mala- 

 gawa at Kandy is no higher than its antiquity, and that 

 the supposed relic is a clumsy substitute, manufactured by 

 Wikrama Bahu in 1566, to replace the original dalada 

 destroyed by the Portuguese in 1560.^ The dimensions 

 and form of the present dalada are fatal to any belief in 

 its identity with the one originally worshipped, whicli 

 was probably human *, whereas 

 the object now shown is a piece 

 of discoloured ivoiy, about two 

 inches in length, and less than 

 one in diameter, resembling the 

 tooth of a crocodile rather than 

 that of a man. 



THE TOOTH. 



* Faeia t Sotjza, vol. ii. pt. iii. 

 ch. ii. p. 251 ; De Couto, Dec. viii. 

 vol. V. pt. i. ch. xii., xiii. p. 74. 



^ The fact of the destruction of 

 the tooth iu 1561 by Don Constan- 

 tine de Braganza is confirmed by the 

 aiitliority of Rodrigtjes de Saa t 

 Menezes, who in 1678 wTote his 

 " Rebelion de Cei/lan^^ to commemorate 

 the exploits and death of his father 

 Constantine de Saa y Norona, who 

 perished in the expedition to re- 

 duce the Kandyans at BaduUa, a.d. 

 1680. — Rehelion, ilfc., ch. i. p. 18: ch, 

 vii. p. 09. The stoiy, wliich must 

 have created a sensation throughout 

 India, is related by Sir Thomas Her- 

 bert, whose travels were published in 

 16.34, and by Francois Pyrard de 

 Laval, who visited Ceylon about 

 1608 A.D. Vojiaf/e, Sf-c, torn. ii. ch. x. 

 p. 89. Valentyn records the fate 

 of the tooth, and says it had been 

 kept near Adam's Peak till 1554. 

 Olid en Nieitw Oost-lndien, ch. xvi. 

 p. 382. In the Narrative of the 

 Mission sent hi/ the Governor- General 



of India to the Court of Ava in 1855, 

 by Captain Yide, tlie envoy and his 

 suite pointed out to him near the 

 palace at Amarapoora " a square edi- 

 fice, representing the depository of 

 the tooth of Gotama, wiiicli, in an- 

 cient times, was preserved within 

 the royal precincts," p. 1.3G. In 

 descending the river to Rangoon on 

 the retui'n of the ^lission, they were 

 shown fit Xyoimgoo, the Zeegoong 

 pagoda, which " enshrines a facsimile 

 of one of Gotama's teeth." — Pp. 33, 

 196. 



^ The powers of tlie tootli as a 

 national palladium, and tlie exemp- 

 tion of Ceylon from foreign domina- 

 tion, so long as it possessed the relic 

 and tlie sacred tree at Anarajapoora, 

 arc propounded in the Eajaratnaeari, 

 Upiiam's version, ch. i. p. 2. 



•' Faria y Souza says it was said 

 to be the tooth of an ape, but this 

 arises from confounding IJuddha and 

 Ilanuman the Sacred Monkey, vol. ii. 

 pt. ii. ch. xvi. p. 207. 



