Buddhism arose as a spiritual reaction against the mechanical rituals of Brahman worship and the rigour of the caste system. It became the predominant religion among the elite, while Brahmanism continued to develop among the mass of the people, for whom the austerity of the Buddha’s doctrine held little appeal and who were more attracted by the cults of the forces of nature. In the 6th and 7th centuries A.D. Hinduism enjoyed a triumphant renaissance, eliminated Buddhism and established itself, almost without a rival, throughout the greater part of the Indian peninsula, from which it reached out over the Bay of Bengal into Insulindia.
Hinduism or Brahmanism is based on two fundamental beliefs the transmigration of souls as a result of successive rebirths (Samsara), and the desire for liberation from this cycle (Moksha). Every being passes from one condition to another, either animal or human, in accordance with a timeless justice who metes out reward or retribution for each being’s acts. The supreme aim is to achieve dissolution into the Brahma, the Absolute of the Universal Being. This religious law, which regulates the destinies of the world, is Dharma; the law which governs the fortunes of the individual is Karma. It can be seen how much of the basic dogma of Brahmanism has been retained in Buddhism. The Buddhist religious doctrine is also known as Dharma (Sinhalese Dhamma); the personal destiny of man is a destiny necessarily linked with sin is Karma: and the dissolution which is achieved in Nirvana (Sinhalese Nibbana) is a return to the world of Brahma (or Brahama).
Hindu Mythology
The Supreme Being himself is never represented, but the invisible Brahma is manifested in three primal gods BrahmA (with a long a), Vishnu and Shiva or Siva. Brahma is the creator god, Vishnu the god who maintains the creation in being, and Shiva the god of opposites, of life and death, of destruction and regeneration.
Brahma is rarely the subject of worship. He is depicted with four heads, symbolising his omnipresence. Like all the Hindu gods, he has a consort, Saraswathi, who is represented riding on a peacock with a lotus flower in her hand. She is the goddess of the arts and literature. Brahma and Saraswathi are often shown sitting on a gigantic lotus flower. The lotus, which lives on water, the primal element, is a symbol of eternal and perfect happiness, the state of bliss enjoyed by the gods. In Hindu symbolism the lotus also represents the female sex organ: an equivalence which should be remembered when seeking to interpret certain Hindu carvings.
Vishnu is the principal god of a Hindu sect, the Vaishnavites or Vishnuites. He is the incarnation of the supreme divinity for those Hindus who believe that man is not totally annihilated by the Absolute and that there can be some form of communication between God and his creatures. Vishnu is “He who has pity on men” or “He who puts men to the test”. He is also known as Hari and as Narayana. He is accompanied by a fabulous bird, Garuda, the enemy of snakes, and his wife is Lakshmi, the ideal woman, all beauty, grace and benevolence. Vishnu is a god of many reincarnations or avatars (avatara). The nine avatars in which he has appeared in the course of the world’ s history are: (1) Matsya, the Fish; (2) Kurma, the Tortoise; (3) Varaha, the Boar, who saved the world from the Deluge; (4) Narasimha, the Man-Lion, who devoured a tyrant; (5) Vamana, the dwarf who revealed the greatness of God to an unbelieving king; (6) Parasurama, the hero who delivered the Brahmans from the oppression of the Kshatryas; (7) Lord Rama, the all-conquering hero of the Ramayana; (8) Krishna the Blue, the king’s son who became a herdsman, a dark-skinned hero who no doubt represents some Dravidian divinity; (9) Buddha the Kshatrya, who came into the world to drive the unrighteous along the road to damnation. The tenth avatar is seldom represented, for it will appear only at the end of the world: it is Kalki, the white horseman, or sometimes the white horse, which will triumph over all the forces of evil.
Lakshmi follows her husband’s avatars and has many names: Kalyani, Dharani as the consort of Parasurama; Rukmini or Raddha as the consort of Krishna; Sita as the consort of Rama, etc. All these names are found as personal names among Brahmanists in India and Sri Lanka. Lakshmi is worshipped during the Feast of Lamps, Divali or Dipawali, in October or November.
Krishna is Vishnu’s most popular avatar, venerated both by the humblest believers and by the mystics. His colourful rustic adventures, his country love affairs and his miraculous exploits are recounted in the Mahabharata, the longest epic poem in the world. He is depicted playing the flute to charm herd girls or overcoming the snake Kaliya. Krishna is a highly ambiguous figure: the masses see him as a gay and lusty adventurer, while the mystics interpret his adventures in a spiritual sense as the quest of the divine Husband for souls yearning with supranatural love.
Throughout all his avatars, however, Vishnu is seen as a god, who is very close to his creatures, the compassionate god who loves men, guards them and delivers them from all evils floods, snakes, tyrants, demons or vices. The incarnations of Vishnu are of central importance in Hinduism, and had so much struck the imagination of ordinary people that the Buddha’s first disciples, anxious that their Master should rival the god of the Vaishnavites, devised a whole series of incarnations of the Buddha, including that of the future Buddha or Buddha-to-be. This is the theme of the famous Jatakas, a book which is still the subject of Buddhist commentaries.
Shiva, also known as Mahadeva (the Great God) or Bhairava (the Terrible), is the third member of the Brahmanist trinity, but is the prime god of the Shaivites, the largest Brahmanist sect. He is clearly a pre-Aryan god who was taken over by the Brahmans. He is known as the Destroyer, for he represents the redoubtable forces of nature and the ominous presence of death; but he is also called the Creator, for life is constantly reborn out of corruption. He is thus the god of eternal renewal, which is manifested in a cosmic dance expressing the dynamism and joy of the creative act and the victory of living order over chaos. In this representation, which is popular among the Tamils, he is known as Nataraja, king of the dance. His mount (vahana) is the bull Nandi, the Joyous One, who appears as a guardian of Shaivite temples and symbolizes the generative power controlled by his master. This generative power is Shiva’s principal attribute, represented by a stylised phallus, the lingam, which often stands on a lotus flower, the yoni. The representations of Shiva with four, six or eight arms symbolise the movements of the cosmic dance and the god s omnipotence. Shiva’s consort is a goddess with many names, reflecting the different aspects of a primitive mother goddess. She is Parvati, goddess of beauty and love, but she is also the terrible Durga or Kali, who in earlier times was worshipped with human sacrifices. Her mount is either a peacock or a tiger.
There can be no question of listing the vast number of gods worshipped by the Hindus, but in addition to the three main gods and their consorts mention must also be made of two gods who are often represented in temples, Ganesh and Subramanian.
Ganesh (or Ganapati or Pillaiyar) is represented with a big bellied man’s body and an elephant’s head. He is a very ancient god, who was worshipped by the earliest inhabitants of India and is still very popular with humble people: a benevolent deity whose powers are invoked at the beginning of any enterprise. The Brahmans, seeking to unify Indian myths of diverse origins, made him the son of Shiva and Parvati.
Subramanian (sometimes known as Kartikeya or Skanda) is the leader of the good spirits and the recognised protector of Brahmans, a six-headed god who is shown riding on a peacock. He is an indigenous god of omnipotent power who has been incorporated in the official mythological hierarchy. In Tamil territory and in Sri Lanka he has retained a distinctive personality as Murugan, an old mountain god. He is sometimes also known as Swaminatha, Mentor of God or Mentor of Shiva. Like Ganesh, he has been fitted into the official hierarchy as a son of Shiva and Parvati.
Forms of worship
The cult rendered to the various Hindu divinities resembles the services which a king or queen would receive from their servants. The toilet and dressing of the divine statue, the sacred bath, the marriage of the god and goddess, the offerings of foodstuffs and flowers, the burning of incense and the sprinkling of other perfumes, and the offering of various other honours give the service of the god something of the appearance of a court ritual.
Primitive Religions
Some reference must be made to the primitive religions of Sri Lanka, since visitors will be shown the dewalas, the temples or humble shrines dedicated to pre-Buddhist divinities, sometimes loosely related to Brahmanist gods. Many Sri Lankans claim to be Buddhist render a somewhat unorthodox worship to these divinities. It is difficult to identify with any certainty the place of these cults in the religious pattern of Sri Lanka, but they appear to be primitive cults which have not developed like the indigenous cults of India and which accordingly it has not been possible to integrate into Hindu mythology. The presence of the Tamils for such a long period and their control of part of the island for so many centuries may well have influenced these primitive cults. King Rajah Sinha I, who became a convert to Brahmanism in 1582, tried to incorporate dewas in Hindu mythology.
Among distinctively Sri Lankan divinities are Natha, a supreme god, sometimes equated with Brahma; Vishnu or Maha Vishnu, venerated as the Lord of Elephants , who is not quite the same as the Brahmanist Vishnu; Saman or Samana, a mountain god, a redoubtable divinity who is often assimilated to Bhairava, the terrible aspect of Shiva; Kataragama, a warrior god who rules over the forests, a kind of Sri Lankan Mars with Dionysiac aspects; and Pattini, a virgin goddess who reigns over flowing waters and is also invoked as the goddess of smallpox, like the goddess Maryamman in southern India.
There are also many local spirits about which it is difficult to obtain information, since orthodox Buddhists seem a little embarrassed by these survivals from prehistoric times. Thus a god named Vibushana, who is little more than a name, watches over the Buddhist temple at Kelani. To the Western mind some of these divinities may appear to lack any logical function or perhaps to smack of heresy; but in Sri Lanka they are merely a reflection of the tolerance which admits many different gods to the religious pantheon.
Christianity
It is known that Christianity reached Sri Lanka in the early centuries of our era, being brought in by Persian merchants in the 4th century. After the Council of Ephesus in 431 these communities became Nestorian and thereafter maintained themselves down the centuries: we know, for example, that there was a Christian church at Polonnaruwa in the 12th century. The present Christian population of Sri Lanka however, is the result of the missionary activity of the colonial period. As in Europe they are divided into Roman Catholics, the Reformed Church and Anglicans. They number rather more than a million and a half, with a majority of Catholics.
For long Roman Catholicism in Sri Lanka was under the influence of the Portuguese church in Goa. In the 19th century there was a revival among the Catholic communities under the influence of French missionaries, who from 1850 onwards trained a considerable number of Sri Lankan priests. In some of the jungle villages (e.g. near Polonnaruwa) visitors can attend services in modest little churches built of timber and branches, with roofs which let in the rain, at which they can hear Christmas carols sung in Sinhalese or Tamil to old French tunes. In some of the village churches can be seen statues of Joan of Arc and St Thrse of Lisieux. Three French archbishops are buried in the cathedral of Santa Lucia in Colombo.
In the towns there are many Anglican and Reformed congregations, the latter of Calvinist persuasion. These non-Catholic Christians have always been in the van of the ecumenical movement.
Islam
There are rather less than a million Muslims in Sri Lanka. Well before the Hegira Arab seamen knew of the seasonal winds which carried them to the Indian peninsula, and it was no doubt from them that the seamen of Alexandria learned about the winds of Hippalos. In the 8th century the Hashimi, an Arab clan who were being persecuted by Caliph Abd-el-Malik ibn Marwan (685-705), made their escape by sea and settled on the hospitable coasts of Selendib, where they established their first communities at Berberyn, Galle, Colombo, Puttalam, Jaffna, Mannar and Trincomalee. The newcomers prospered as traders in spices and gems and as carriers of the sea trade, living in closed groups but always maintaining good relations with the Sinhalese kings. In the 12th century representatives of their communities were members of the Council of a King of Polonnaruwa. After the coming of the Portuguese these Moros were discriminated against and sometimes persecuted by the new masters of Sri Lanka, who saw in them their traditional enemies, and sought asylum on the east coast under the protection of the king of Kandy. This was the origin of the many rural communities of Muslims in the Batticaloa area.
The British translated Moros into Moors, the name by which they are still known, but in Sinhalese they were called the Marakkal, after the name of a Muslim caste in southern India. From the 17th century onwards the number of Muslims in Sri Lanka was increased by the Malays brought in by the Dutch as mercenaries. Finally during the period of British rule Muslims from the Presidency of Madras came to settle in Sri Lanka. The Moors are thus of very diverse origin, but nevertheless form a coherent community which holds firmly to its religious traditions and constitutes a kind of endogamous caste. Their normal language is Tamil, except for the Malays, who have kept their own language.
