380 



THE SINGHALESE CHRONICLES. 



[PART III. 



A.D. 

 9- 



effort at repression was ineffectual. It was made by 

 the King Wairatissa, A.D. 209 ; but within forty years 

 the schismatic tendency returned, the persecution was 

 renewed, and the apostate priests, after being branded 

 on the back, were ignominiously transported to the 

 opposite coast of India. 1 



The new sect had, however, established an interest in 

 high places ; and Sangha-mitta, one of the exiled priests, 

 returning from banishment on the death of the king, so 

 ingratiated himself with his successor, that he was en- 

 trusted with the education of the king's sons. One of the 

 latter, Maha-Sen, succeeded to the throne, A.D. 275, and, 

 openly professing his adoption of the Wytulian tenets, 

 dispossessed the popular priesthood, and .overthrew the 

 Brazen Palace. With the materials of the great wihara, 

 he constructed at the sacred Bo-tree a building as a 

 receptacle for relics, and a temple in which the statue of 

 Buddha was to be worshipped according to the rites of 

 the reformed religion. 2 



So bold an innovation roused the passions of the 

 nation ; the people prepared for revolt, and a conflict 

 was imminent, when the schismatic Sangha-mitta was 

 suddenly assassinated, and the king, convinced of his 



1 TUHNOUB'S Epitome, p. 25, Ma- 

 hawanso, ch. xxxvi. p. 232. As the 

 Mahawamo intimates in another pas- 

 sage that amongst the priests who 

 were banished to the opposite coast 

 of India, there was one Sangha- 

 mitta, " who was profoundly versed 

 in the rites of the demon faith 

 ('bhuta'), it is probable that out 

 of the Wytulian heresy grew the 

 system which prevails to the present 

 day, by which the heterodox dewales 

 and halls for devil dances are built 

 in close contiguity to the temples and 

 wiharas of the orthodox Buddhists, 

 and the barbarous rites of demon 

 worship are incorporated with the 

 abstractions of the national religion. 

 On the restoration of Maha-Sen to the 

 true faith, the Mahawanso repre- 



sents him as destroying the dewales 

 at Anarajapoora in order to replace 

 them with wiharas (Mahawanso, ch. 

 xxxvii. p. 237). An account of the 

 mingling of Brahmanical with Budd- 

 hist worship, as it exists at the pre- 

 sent day, will be found in HARDY'S 

 Oriental Monachism, ch. xix. Pro- 

 fessor H. H. WILSON, in his Historical 

 Sketch of the Kingdom of Pandi/a, 

 alludes to a heresy, which, anterior 

 to the sixth century, disturbed the 

 sanaattar or college of Madura ; the 

 leading feature of which was the ad- 

 mixture of Buddhist doctrines with 

 the rite of the Brahmans, and " this 

 heresy," he says, "some traditions 

 assert was introduced from Ceylon." 

 Asiat. Journ. vol. iii. p. 218. 

 2 Mahawanso, ch. xxxvii. p. 235. 



