452 



SCIENCES AND SOCIAL AETS. 



[Part IV. 



kings, on the occasion of consecrating a dagoba at 

 Miliintala, covered with " white cloth " the road taken 

 by the procession between the mountain and capital, a 

 distance of more than seven miles. ^ 



In later times a curious practice prevailed, which 

 exists to the present day ; — on occasions when it is 

 intended to make offerings of yellow robes to the priest- 

 hood, the cotton was plucked from the tree at day- 

 break, and "cleaned, spun, woven, dyed, and made 

 into garments" before the setting of the sun. This 

 custom, called Catina Dhawna, is first referred to in 

 the Rajaratnacari in the reign of Pralo-ama l.\ a.d. 

 1153. 



The expression " made into garments " alludes to the 

 custom enjoined on the priests of having the value of 

 the material destroyed, before consenting to accept it as 

 a gift, thus carrying out thek vow of poverty. The 

 robe of Gotama Buddha was cut into thirty pieces, 

 these were again united, so that they "resembled the 

 patches of ground in a rice field ; " and hence he en- 

 joined on his foUowers the observance of the same 

 practice.^ 



The arts of bleaching and dyeing were understood 

 as well as that of weaving, and the Mahawanso, in 

 describing the building of the Euanw^elle dagoba, at 

 Anarajapoora, B.C. 161, tells of a canopy formed of 

 " eight thousand pieces of cloth of every hue." ^ 



Earliest Artisans. — Valentyn, writing on the tradi- 

 tional . information acquked from the Singhalese them- 

 selves, records the behef of the latter, that in the suite 

 of the Pandyan princess, who arrived to marry Wijayo, 

 were artificers from Madura, who were the first to intro- 



1 A.D. 8. Rajavali, p. 227 ; 3Iaha- 

 tcanso, ch. xxxiv. p. 2l3. 



^ See ante, Vol. II. p. 35. Jiq/a- 

 ratnacari, pp. 104, 109, 112, \?>b; 

 Rajavali, p. 261 ; IIaeby's Eustern 

 Monachismj ch., xii. pp. 114, 121. 



^ IIaiidt'.s EastiTii 3Ionach{sm, 

 ch. xii. p. 117. See ante,yo\, I. Pt.ni. 

 ch. iv. p. 351. 



^ 3Iahmoanso, ch. xxx. p. 179, See 

 also ch. xxxviii. p. 258. 



