452 



SCIENCES AND SOCIAL ARTS. 



[PART IV. 



one of the kings, on the occasion of consecrating a 

 dagoba at Mihintala, covered with " white cloth " the 

 road taken by the procession between the mountain and 

 capital, a distance of more than seven miles. 1 



In later times a curious practice prevailed, which 

 exists to the present day ; on occasions when it was 

 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. 2 This 

 custom, called Catina Dhawna, is first referred to in 

 the Eajaratnacari in the reign of Prakrama I. 2 , 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 their 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 followers the observance of the same 

 practice. 3 



The arts of bleaching and dyeing were understood 

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

 describing the building of the Kuanwelle dagoba, at 

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

 " eight thousand pieces of cloth of every hue." 4 



Earliest Artisans. VALENTYN, writing on the tradi- 

 tional information acquired from the Singhalese them- 

 selves, records the belief 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 j MaJia- 

 wanso, ch. xxxiv. p. 213. 



8 See ante, Vol. II. p. 351. Raja- 

 ratnacari, pp. 104, 109, 112, 135; 

 Rajavali, p. 261 ; HARDY'S Eastern 

 Monachism, ch. xii. pp. 114, 121. 



3 HARDY'S ^Eastern Monachism, 

 ch. xii. p. 117. See ante,Vol. I. Ptirr. 

 ch. iv. p. 351. 



4 Mahawanso, ch. xxx. p. 179. See 

 also ch. xxxviii. p. 258. 



