No. 62.— 1909. J 



PROCEEDINGS . 



271 



7. StrsiYAGODA Sumangala TepojitnAns^ said that the Paper 

 was a valuable one, and threw light on important facts in the 

 history of the Island. 



With regard to Raja Sinha' s assumption of divine titles such 

 as "God our Lord" and "God of the Country" it should be 

 remembered that the word " Deva," which is identified with Latin 

 "Deus" or "Divus" has been an approved title of kings in 

 the East from time immemorial. In the Majjhima-nilcdya, the 

 commentary on the Mulipariydya Sutta, Buddhaghosa enumerates 

 three kinds of gods, viz., Sammuti-diva (approved gods), Uppabi- 

 deva (born gods), and Visuddhi-deva (holy gods). By the first, 

 kings and royalty are meant ; by the second, celestial beings ; and 

 by the third, arhats who have attained to the entire extinction of 

 passions. This appellation was not an unusual one in the West too- 

 Horace in addressing Augustus calls him vice-gerent of Jupiter 

 on earth. He was inclined to think that a similar feeling 

 might have persuaded the English kings to fight for their divine 

 rights. 



Another point to which he wished to refer was explanatory note 

 4 to the Paper. Raja Sinha II. was a good Buddhist, whose State 

 religion was Buddhism. He followed Dutugemunu the Great in 

 taking Buddhist monks with him on starting for war. The 

 following quotation from Mdhdwansa bears on this point : — 



Chapter 96 — ' ' And taking with him the sons of Buddha for the 

 purpose of giving alms^ and performing such like meritorious acts, the 

 fearless king proceeded from place to place, sounding the drum of war 

 as terrible as the sound of thunder. 



• 



Raja Sinha II. being a good Buddhist allowed religious tolera- 

 tion to all his subjects indiscriminately as one of the principles 

 of Buddhism. The religious tolerance that was enjoyed in his 

 reign was not due to mixing Buddhism with other religions. 



8. Hon. Mr. P. AnuNlcHAiiAM, Vice-President, said he did not 

 propose to dwell on the Paper itself, after the exhaustive speeches 

 they had just heard, especially from Mr. Pieris. He would 

 only refer to a sentence in Mr. Ferguson's introduction to his 

 Paper, which read: " These cases involving the honour of a Chief 

 Justice and a Colonial Secretary of Ceylon are not pleasant to 

 dwell upon," and said he thought there was absolutely no 

 foundation for the imputation on the faith of those two 

 distinguished officials, one of them Sir A. Johnston, who was not 

 only our Chief Justice, but was a Vice-President of the Royal 

 Asiatic Society of Great Britain. Mr. Ferguson seems to 

 have been the first person to detect the watermark on the paper. 

 Is it credible that any sane person, much less a Chief Justice, 

 with knowledge of that mark, would have deliberately palmed 

 off on the British Museum as an original document which bore 

 conclusive evidence of the falsity of the claim? Mr. Arunachalani 

 concluded by offering, on behalf of the audience and the Society, 

 their very warm thanks to Mr. Donald Ferguson for his transla- 

 tion of those very interesting letters. 



