46 
SPOLIA ZEYLANICA. 
In viharas these offerings for the most part take the form of flags, 
often with a human head and an inscription with symbolical device 
roughly embroidered on the calico. Other gifts of jewels, images, 
clothes, &c., do not, as a rule, appear to be votive. The ceremonial 
act of carrying fire on the head for lighting purposes is, at least 
sometimes, votive in character. I have seen it performed at Wesak 
in the compound of a vihara in the Morawak korale. 
While in viharas only the images or rupas of the Buddha and 
Buddhist saints are seen with wall paintings or plaster reliefs of 
Vishnu and the more prominent gods, in the dewales the actual 
god or gods to whom the temple is dedicated are believed to be 
present at all events at certain times; consequently, great sanctity 
attaches to the shrine, to which Europeans especially are seldom 
admitted. 
Such sanctity even may extend to the surroundings of the temple, 
as in the case of a small dewale on the seacoast north of Ambalan- 
goda, where I was requested not to rest on a rock adjacent to the 
building for fear of desecrating it. It is, however, known that votive 
offerings of articles of value are made in the larger dewalas, e.q., 
those of Alutnuwara and Kataragam. At the latter place, it is stated 
that silver models of limbs are offered ep voto by individuals who 
have been cured of maladies in the parts represented. 
The restrictions with which the larger dewalas are guarded are, 
either from indifference or security from intrusion in remote dis¬ 
tricts, relaxed in the case of the small village shrines or hovilas , and 
admission to them can be occasionally obtained with little difficulty. 
A small dewale, which I once visited in the Wanni, had not even a 
door. 
These buildings are, as a rule, of the rudest character, with mud 
walls and a small outer court or verandah. Following the Buddhist 
tradition arising from the early use of caves as temples, they are 
often built against or under overhanging rocks. 
The worship in these village shrines is, however, of peculiar interest, 
not only on account of their being devoted to the cult of minor 
deities, local in character and probably pre-Buddhistic in origin, 
but because the worship consists very largely in votive offerings of 
ceremonial forms of weapons, tools, and elephant and cattle goads. 
With reference to the temples of Ceylon, Knox (Historical Relation 
of the Island Ceylon, 1681, p. 73) writes : “ In them are idols and 
images most monstrous to behold, some of silver, some of brass and 
other metals ; and also painted sticks and targets, and most strange 
kind of arms, as bills, arrows, spears, and swords. But these arms 
are not in the Bouddou’s temples, he being for peace ; ” and, again, 
with special reference to the small dewales : “ The temples called 
hovels are inferior to the other temples, and have no revenues belong¬ 
ing to them. A man piously disposed builds a small house at his 
own charge, which is the temple, and himself becomes priest thereof. 
