No. 23. — 1881.] KANDYAN CEREMONIES. 35 



until the following year; and the Perahera is at an end. The 

 next day, however, there is a grand winding up procession in 

 the afternoon, after which the chiefs all pay their respects to 

 the Government Agent of Kandy as the representative of the 

 Queen. 



3. — The Was Mangalyaya, On the day after the full moon 

 in July, the elders of the village visit their village priest, 

 or any other priest they may have selected, and ask. him 

 to stay with, and minister to, them for three months. They 

 promise to give him a place of residence, to feed him and 

 render him any service he may require during that period. The 

 request is complied with, and a procession is organized to 

 conduct him to the place prepared. Here he remains for the 

 stated period. He cannot leave except under certain ceremo- 

 nies ; and at no time can he be absent for more than seven days. 

 On a fixed day in October, determined on beforehand by the 

 elders of the village and communicated to the priest, he is 

 requested to invite a certain number of his brotherhood to the 

 last ceremony. The number varies according to the means and 

 generosity of the villagers. On the day named, these priests 

 assemble and are sumptuously fed in the morning by the vil- 

 lagers. After the meal is over a sheet of white cloth, twenty 

 cubits in length, is presented to the priests, who thereupon divide 

 it into fifteen rectangular pieces, and these they join together 

 again into the shape of a priest's robe — a large rectangle, five 

 cubits long, and four and a-half cubits broad. The object of this 

 division and re-joining being to destroy the value of the cloth, 

 and to carry out the rule that no priest may wear a robe of one 

 piece. It is then taken by the dhoby of the village under a 

 canopy to a neighbouring stream, and publicly washed ; tom- 

 toms and trumpets being sounded in the meanwhile. When 

 washed, it is brought back to the hall where the priests are 

 assembled, and placed in a small vessel containing the proper 

 yellow dye. After it has remained in this a sufficient time, it 



