No. 24. — 1881.] SINHALESE OMENS. 



147 



SINHALESE OMENS.* 



o 



By S. Jayatilaka, Mudaliyar. 



{Read October Uh, 1881.) 



Omens enter largely into the every-day life of the native of 

 Ceylon. They exercise considerable influence in almost every 

 remarkable occurrence or incident in his life— the birth of a child, 

 the marriage of a son or daughter, the undertaking of a journey 

 or speculation, an illness or death in the family, and last but 

 not least, the result of his favourite pastime, a lawsuit. 



One of the peculiar characteristics in Ceylon of faith in omens 

 is that this feeling, or fear, or belief—by whatever name it may 

 be called — is shared alike by all classes of natives. 



Omens are of two kinds, lucky and unlucky. If one about to 

 start on a journey, or undertake a particular work, meets with 

 an omen described as a bad one, he postpones the journey and 

 gives up the work for a while, and in many instances he aban- 

 dons both altogether ; and when compelled by necessity to do 

 the one or the other, he does it with the foregone conclusion of 

 a failure. 



Instances are known of medical men, summoned to attend on 

 persons dangerously ill, whom, perhaps, timely aid might have 

 saved, returning home and refusing to see the patient, or pre- 

 scribe for him, as being perfectly useless and unavailing, because 

 just after starting they had met with a bad omen. 



The following verse from an Elu poetical work called Selali- 

 kini Sandesaya, [esi^gsS^ cq^^ckiqd] written by Sri Eahula 

 Totagamuve, the great poet who flourished about the year 



* First published in abridged form in the " Ceylon Diocesan Gazette," 

 March 1st, 1879.— iZo?&. Sec. 



