GREEN CEYLON

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 32, 8 February 1932, Page 3

GREEN CEYLON

A WONDER COUNTRY

NO COLOUR LINE

SACRED FESTIVAL

' The first thing that strikes a. visitor to Colombo is the climate—it strikes him liurp. Yet the temperature is not very high as temperatures go in South Africa, the mean maximum shade temperature-in August being S4 degrees, writes Kamsden Balmforth' in the/Capo Times."

■Unfortunately it does not get much cooler in the evenings, the mean -minimuni temperature being 75 degrees. It gives rise to a moist, sticky .heat, much worse than that.of Durban. It is like being in a continuous vapour bath. As one cannot get away from it while in Colombo, the only thing to do is to adapt oneself to it. Clothing? Yes. But there aro limits in that direction. T\ felt that I must respect the susceptibilities; of ,my host .Slid, hostess, so I could not go about in a loin-cloth a la Gandhi, though there aro thousands, of Singhalese and Tamils in Colombo, who affect that particular costume —and not a bad costume cither when adornin"g a fine form and a lithe and supple body.: A. more common form of costume is a skirt from waist to ankle, worn by men and women alike, along with a light cotton, garment for the upper part of the body. - But a skirt does not appeal to me, ami I have always felt shy of light cotton clothing, fearing that it would mako:me look too:much of a guy. My hoßt, however, offered to lend me a cotton suit of his, and1 I had. no sooner got into it. than all the household declared that I looked less .of a guy in light cotton than I did in sober grey. I wondered "if they were pulling my leg. YEAR'S GREEN. At any rate,-I: immediately ordered two suits mado to measure for the ;astpnishing sum of 23 rupees for both — £1- 14s (3d., I had paid much more than this for a single alpaca jacket just before I left Capo Town. The frequent and 'regular rainfall in Colombo keeps everything fresh and green all' the year round. There are no brown; burnt-up patches. It is a city of perpetual summer. > Vegetation, flowers, and fruit are abundant .and luxurious. Splashes of colour in the parks' arid gardens blend and harmonise with the bright and variegated colours worn by the people, of which-the flowing yellow lobes of the Buddhist priests, varying from:pale primrose /to deep orange, and tho brighter costumes of tho yromen f olk-jrcrimson; blue,, green, and white — form*a striking;feature.' ■ • ■-'■> . Buddhist priests, often' in couples or in; groups, ono,.,mcets everywhere, for the Buddhists number \.6ij per cent, of the population,' the Hindus 22 per cent, the Moslems. 10 per cent., and, Christians 6J per ■; cent., the latter ■ being largely Roman' Catholics. ' ' All the missions scein to be doing good work, judging by the number of their schools and colleges. The Eastern religions also have their missionary .organisations.- ' ••.'.- ." ..\- i. \ ■ . At.,the Sri Ramakriskna Mission (Hindu Jy at which I lectured one afternoon, classes and lectures were held five days in the week, systematic instruction being given in .Sanscrit, Singhalese and Tamil, and nioro advanced lectures "oh the Bhavagad Gita, the "Place of -Religion' in Education," -ancU.-~.the "History of Religious Thought.". The mission controls and manages eleven schools in Ceylon; , ..:, -■■~... LI^HT-HEARTED CROWD. The people of- Ceylon, Singhalese and Tamil alike, seem to be a genial, happy, light-hearted crowd. Publicly, there is no-rigid social colour bar. The caste system may have the same effect industrially' and:so' act as a : class ; bar^ though it is easy for a person of low casteto gain a school or college scholarship. ;:.; : ■ '-V . : .:,''.?.■■. \''.:;-.y ■■"'■'■ •'.■ There. is la certain -amount; of colour prejudice, I am told, in private, social, and club life. But in public assemblies Europeans and"cqloiired people-mix on terma'o'i: equality; " Under the circumstances it must be so, for there are only 33001 Europeans, in Colombo, with its coloured population of 284,000, and only some, 8000 Europeans in the whole^ of Ceylon.;" ■'.:•-.; - - ' ;■ I went to an amateur performance of "lolanthe'' by the Colombo Amateur Dramatic Club; ,~ The Opera House- was filled with people of all races and eolours.~and professions. '.'■•■;.. White people are so overwhelmingly outnumbered that any European who attempted publicly to give himself airs on the ground of colour would simply make himself ridiculous: Jn the'new Legislative Council there are some half-dozen European members) three of them nominated, but the great majority of the members are educated Singhalese or Tamils. The official language is English. But public .notices are published in three languages—-English, Singhalese, and cTainil. ■ ' ' ■ But •! he* who knows only Colombo knows little. of Ceylon, '■ just as: he 'who knows only Cape Town knows little of South A.frica. .:,'-.:.: v v One must go into Jthe country to realise its marvellous beauty and fertility—its thousands .of -coconut ;plantations,its beautifully green.;paddy .fields, and its abundance of tropical fruits.':■: I have just travelled up to,Kandy. As the train leaves the .lowlands it passes through beautiful ravines. from which one sees tho '. higher .mountains yin the distance all covered-with au abundance of vegetation—in memorable contrast to the bare, barren, : savage grandeur of our South African mountain scenery. v THE BACRED TOOTH. But the chief thing that brought me to Kandy was the opportunity of witnessing .the Perahera, tho festival' of the Sacred Tooth. This tooth is supposed to be from the mouth of tho Lord Buddha himself, and must' therefore be over 2500 years old. .Cynics who have seen it aver that the tooth is too big ever to have.been inside the mouth of a human being. But cynics, perhaps fortunately, have no weight with religious devotees. Reputable historians state that the tooth was publicly incinerated as au idplatrous object" by the Archbishop of Goa in the sixteenth'century, "arid its ashes scattered over the sea." But supernatural relics have a habit of renewing themselves. or not, this particular relic has been and, is still venerated by millions of people. It is wrapped in five golden casings, and specially guarded in, a sacred casket in the Buddhist temple. Li is exposed to the public view under carefully guarded conditions only once a year. On the occasion of this festival- the golden casket only, not the tooth itself, is allowed to be carried in the'proccsBion^on the back of the largest elephant on the city. We were very favourably situated for seeing not only the procesion itself but the whole scene of which it-formed part. "■-, From our hotel window we looked down on the principal street, in which were gathered thousands, of people of all ages, from children in arms and toddlers by their mothers' side to aged men ana women, mostly dressed in gay festival .attire. Behind lay tho waters •f the lake, arid behind the lake tho Kills and'woods of Kandy, from which fleained lights from road and cottage. Shortly after 8 o'clock we heard the iwad.dC ' kettie-drttma. TJh© proces-

sion had already left the temple. In a few minutes it appeared, led by an official guide in resplendent attire. Flaring torches or, rather, braziers hold on long rods and filled with some highly inflammable substance illumined tho whole way, and threw a lurid light on the shining bodies of the dancers. DEVIL DANCERS. These, stripped to the waist, moved in-rhythmic measure on each side of the street to tho sound of the kettledrums, castanets, and tambourines, varied here and there by certain "devil dancers," whoso function seemed to bo to exorcise any demons thero might bo either without or within, their shining bangles and breastplates and jangling bells adding to the weirdness of tho scene' • ■ ■ ■; Then came elephants, including two baby elephants, with slow and dignified tread; then, more torchlights, . more kettle-drums and dancers; then, the noblest beast of all, the largest elephant in Kandy, with bejewelled tusks, caparisoned with gold-embroidered cloth, with a miniature caiiopy on his back, on which rested, amid blazing lights, tho golden casket oi' tho sacred relic. : . '-.-.■ ■'. ■ ... Then moro tprch-bearers and dancers, and more elephants with other sacred relics, and still more groups of dancers. It was a striking spectacle, alive and vivid at every point. But the most impressive part of it to me was tho elephants—so silent, so dignified, moving with slow, massive, but graceful motion along the crowded street, with a dignity which man does not possess. They might well have been thinking, "What fools those mortals be." Although this was a Buddhist rcligU ous festival,' bringing thousands of pil-: grans, not a single Buddhist priest did I see taking any public part. CENT.URIES OLD. _As I compared this highly emotional display of religious feeling with tho cold> austerity of Buddha's Eight-fold Path, I could not but ask myself whether this "festival was not a concession to popular taste and religious emotion, similar to the miracle and mystery plays of the Middle Ages, with their repesentatious of Biblical and Christian legend. What' was; the relation between this superstition of the Sacred Tooth and tho \ really vital and spiritual part of Buddhism? A 'Western .rationalist would probably say that the :!■ sooner such superstitions die the better; that the proper thing to do with, ancient teeth of, dubious origin is to grind them to pno.sphates and so make useful manure of them. Yet/the mystic will urgo that this festival of tho Sacred Tooth, absurd as it may sound to Western minds, does bring into the "drab monotony of life of scores of thousands of people a flash of brightness, arid colour, and joy, which they _wduld_ not otherwise enjoy. This festival is not only religious—it is national. It goes back conturics. It has a long evolution. Its songs aro the -io'k-songs of, tho people, its dances are folk-dances. Imagine European life with . the. brightness of Yule-tide and Christmas festivities taken out of it It, is, difficult to justify these things rationally, but we must not mistake the husk for the kernel. Superstition and falsity do leave a crooked and unhealthy, mark somewhere in the mind and life of those'; who are subject to them. Yet such falsities are. not to bo dislodged by direct attack, but by, substituting deeper conceptions of truth and beauty.