OR YAKSEYO. 



15 



are supposed to be the most terrible and hideous looking creatures 

 in existence. Their aliment is blood and flesh, especially of human 

 beings, but this not being allowed them now by their king, they are 

 obliged to content themselves with making men sick, and accepting 

 the offerings made by the sick people, which in imagination they 

 suppose to be the flesh and blood of men, but do not, or cannot, 

 actually eat; the only use they make of such offerings being to look 

 at them, and enjoy the pleasure the sight affords them. By what 

 other means they support existence, whether they take any kind of 

 food whatever, or live by some supernatural means without the 

 use of any food, neither the Cattadiya nor his books enable us to 

 say. 



They are said to have, in general, skins of a black colour, and large 

 protruding eyes and hanging lips, with long white teeth, of which 

 those called the canine, in some demons, project out of the mouth, 

 curved like a pair of sickles. They sometimes wear about their 

 persons venomous serpents, especially Cobras. They are invisible 

 to men, but have the power of making themselves visible, generally 

 in some other shape, often in that of beasts, of men or of women. 

 As the favorite food of the cat is said to be rats, and that of tigers 



recognizes demons wholly unknown to Buddhistic al literature, do in themselves 

 constitute a strong piece of internal evidence in proof of the greater antiquity 

 of Demonism over Buddhism in this Island. For, had the latter been the one 

 earlier established here, the probability, amounting almost to a certainty, is 

 that the demons recognized by Buddhism itself would have been the demons 

 who would have become objects of worship. 



If Buddha and Wessamonny are mentioned in the invocations and charms of 

 Demonism, as they often are, it only shews the natural result of two systems, 

 which have continued to flourish together side by side for 2000 years and up- 

 wards, trying to adjust themselves to each other as much as possible: the more 

 so when the believer in one system happens, as is the case here, to be also a 

 believer in the other. Buddhism being considered to be the sacred religion, 

 while Demonism is only a religion relating to one's temporal interests, it is 

 natural that the influence of the former should to a certain extent be felt on 

 the latter. 



