The tooth was passed down from king to king without much threat to its existence until the fourth century C.E. During the reign of King Guhasiva, a Buddhist who possessed the relic, a non-Buddhist king named Citrayana attempted to conquer Guhasiva’s kingdom in India.* Guhasiva entered into battle with Citrayana but realized his forces could not defeat the stronger king. Fearing that Citrayana would seize the sacred tooth relic, Guhasiva summoned his only child, Princess Hemamala, and her husband, Prince Danta, and instructed them to deliver the tooth to the king of Sri Lanka.
Disguised as a Brahmin and his wife, the prince and princess slipped out of the city of Dantapura (later called Orissa) with the tooth relic hidden inside a lock of Hemamala’s hair. Then, according to tradition, they entered a thick forest where a tribe of spirit-like beings called Nagas lived. The Nagas, who could appear like people but were not human, caused a fierce storm that alarmed the prince and princess. When they tried to take shelter, they were surrounded by Naga warriors, who searched the princess and found the relic. But to the delight of the prince and princess, the tooth performed a series of miracles. First, it stopped the thrashing storm. Then it jumped to the sky and began to shine brightly. The Nagas fell to their knees in awe, and the prince and princess slipped away unnoticed. The tooth then returned to the hand of Princess Hemamala, who was a devoted Buddhist.
A mural from Kalaniya Raja Maha Vihara, a Buddist temple in Sri Lanka, depicting the arrival in the country from India, in the fourth century, of Princess Hemamala, daughter of King Guhasiva, and her husband, Prince Danta Kumara, with the sacred tooth relic. The prince and princess are disguised as a Brahmin ascetic couple and the relic is hidden in a lock of the princess's hair.
The next obstacle for the prince and princess was to get across the shallow ocean that separated India from Sri Lanka. They set out on their voyage on a large boat, but a severe storm came up that threatened to overturn the vessel. Danta and Hemamala knelt down before the relic and reverently asked for help in completing their voyage. The tooth again rose to the sky and illuminated it with bright colors, whereupon the storm cleared and the travelers on the boat below cheered heartily. Then the relic returned to its carrier.
Prince Danta and Princess Hemamala arrived safely in Sri Lanka, and to avoid being recognized they traveled through the jungle to reach Anuradhapura, the capital, in the north-central part of the country. At the palace they presented a letter of introduction from the princess’s father, which offered the sacred relic to King Meghavarnabhaya of Sri Lanka (who ruled from 301 to 328 C.E.), in the hope that he would protect it from the enemies of Buddhism. The king, greatly pleased with the gift, obliged, calling for a festival and procession to celebrate the tooth. The relic brought joy to the people of the Sinhala kingdom; Meghavarnabhaya placed it above his throne, where it began to shine, so the king built a special temple in the city to enshrine it.
Every king since Meghavarnabhaya who possessed the sacred tooth considered himself the inheritor of the realm of the country until 1815, when Ceylon* became a British crown colony. In the early 1800s, the British occupied and controlled parts of Ceylon, and tried to take over the country, but met resistance, especially from the capital city of Kandy. In 1815, Robert Brownrigg, the governor, entered into a conspiracy with some of the king’s ministers, and his soldiers captured the king, who had been hiding in a remote jungle village. On March 2, an agreement was signed by the British with rebellious ministers in which the ruling power of Ceylon was turned over to the British. (In a famous incident, a brave Buddhist monk named Wariyapola Sumangala took down the British flag that had been hoisted before the pact and stomped on it as a gesture of defiance.) In the nineteenth century the British were bound by a treaty Brownrigg had made to protect the Ceylonese people’s practice of Buddhism, which included maintaining and safeguarding the relic. Later, the British requested to be released from the treaty and appointed a custodian for the tooth.
The relic is encased in seven caskets, one inside the other, which were made especially for it by the sixteenth-century Sri Lankan king Vimaladharmasurya, the last king to give the tooth a home in his palace. During the Portuguese invasion of his country, he did not have time to build a shrine for the relic, so he gave his palace in the city of Mahanuvara (later called Kandy) to house the tooth, and he moved to a small building nearby.
According to Buddhism, the magic of the relic is an extension of the supernatural powers of the Buddha. Buddha was said to have many such powers, including levitation, mind reading, clairaudience, and clairvoyance, but he used them only sparingly, to prove himself to skeptics or when they were urgently needed. For example, in only three instances did he use his “twin miracles” power, in which he would ascend to the sky and water and fire would pour forth simultaneously from his body: in the fourth week after he attained enlightenment, to remove doubt from the minds of divine beings;* when some older, haughty relatives refused to kneel before him; and when some religious leaders called Niganthas tried to discredit him. Once the Buddha used his psychic powers to catch a criminal who was running away. As the criminal ran, he perceived the ground rising steeply to the incline of a mountain, while the Buddha walked casually in pursuit of him on the flat land. When the criminal, known as Angulimala, tired out, Buddha caught him, and through his teachings tamed him. Angulimala, who had previously killed more than 1,000 people, became a well-respected disciple of the Buddha.** On other occasions, if someone needed the help of the Buddha, he would disappear from his temple and appear in front of the person in need.
Today, the sacred tooth continues to be venerated by Buddhists as well as some non-Buddhists for the wholesome thoughts and feelings of holiness it gives them, as well as for its miraculous powers. In times of drought, for instance, the tooth may be taken out of its caskets, and followers will place their faith in the relic to produce rain. Others have claimed healing miracles, such as improved eyesight.
The relic remains locked in its seven caskets, one inside the other. The four outer caskets have locks, and four people have the keys to unlock them—two chief high priests, the custodian of the tooth relic, and a government representative; they must all be together to open the caskets.
The tooth relic is taken from its caskets for public exhibitions every four or five years, and on special occasions such as royal visits or government exhibitions. The four key holders are summoned to open the caskets, whereupon the sacred tooth is customarily placed on a decorated stage in its temple for public viewing a few hours each day but may not be touched. By means of a golden wire, the relic sits on top of a golden lotus. When the relic is not exhibited, people pay respect to it by standing or kneeling before it with their hands together, fingers extended, or by placing flowers in front of it. There is never any praying to or worshiping of the tooth by Buddhists.
Every year in Kandy, Sri Lanka, usually in July or August, a weeklong celebration is held to venerate the relic. For seven days festive processions are held (all in the evenings, except for the last day, when one is held in the morning), during which the smallest of the seven caskets (not containing the relic) is carried by a decorated elephant.
This is the foremost pageant in the country, a tradition that began in the fourth century with King Meghavarnabhaya and has continued to the present; the customs and practices of the procession have changed very little over time. Scores of gaily dressed drummers, trumpeters, dancers, elephants, lamp-holders, flag-bearers, representatives of the local deities, dignitaries, and monks march through the streets as throngs of people from all around the world, including the mostly Buddhist nations of Burma, Thailand, Singapore, and Nepal, enjoy the pageantry and celebrate the tooth relic. The perahera, or procession, moves through Dalada Vidiya, the central street in the city, and continues to the tooth relic’s home, which is located in front of an artificial lake in the city. The celebration ends on the morning of the eighth day, when the last procession is held.
For Buddhists, the impermanent nature of lif
e that the Enlightened One was determined to demonstrate to them is exemplified by the sacred fifth-century B.C.E. tooth of the Buddha.
LOCATION: Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic (Dalada Maligawa), Kandy, Sri Lanka.
Footnotes
*Buddha taught that all conditioned things are transient (annica), sorrowful (dukkha), and soulless (anatta), or impersonal. By leaving his ashes and parts of his body as relics, the Buddha wanted to teach people the impermanent nature of things as they are; by respecting the relics, it is believed, devotees can achieve merit.
*According to Buddhism, the Buddha passed away to nirvana in 543 B.C.E., eighty years after he was born in 623 B.C.E. The reason the year dates differ from the Gregorian calendar is that ancient calculations, according to the traditional Eastern practice, were based on lunar months, whereas Western calculations are based on solar months.
*At this time Hindus opposed Buddhism because the Buddha’s teachings were contrary to the practices of the Brahmins, the Hindu priestly caste. The Hindus wanted Buddhism out of their land, which is why Buddhism began to separate from the country where it originated. What elements of Buddhism the Hindus did not eradicate, the Muslims later finished off, and after the fourteenth century Buddhism was almost completely stripped from India. In the 1920s a Sri Lankan teacher named Anagarika Dharmapala went to India and reestablished Buddhism there. The British government assisted in this effort by restoring ancient Buddhist shrines in places where they had been as early as the third century B.C.E.
*The name of the country was originally Sinhala Dvipa, according to ancient Pali (Buddhist-language) commentaries. The Indian Ocean island was later known by such names as Lanka, Sri Lanka, and beginning around the sixteenth century, Ceylon, when the country was occupied by the Portuguese, who had difficulty pronouncing the name “Sri Lanka.” The country continued to be called Ceylon under later Dutch and British occupation, and through a series of peaceful political reforms was granted independence in 1948. In the 1970s the country became the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka.
*According to Buddhist teachings, invisible divine beings, or deities, live in the land and sky. Humans are powerless in their merits to see divine beings, who have gone beyond human meritorious power, and the happiness enjoyed by divine beings in heaven cannot be seen by humans because by birth they are powerless to do so. In Buddhism, all actions have reactions; bad actions have bad reactions, and good actions have good reactions. One’s actions result in karma, and depending on one’s karma, one will be reborn in a bad station or good station. A person who performs bad deeds such as stealing or killing will be reborn in hell, or in woeful states. There are four hells, according to Buddhism: the one visible woeful state is the animal world, and the three invisible states are the hungry-ghost world, burning hell, and the world of deformed spirits. Inhabitants in these worlds suffer according to their past deeds.
**Angulimala was the brilliant disciple of a Brahmin. His jealous fellow disciples conspired to get him into trouble by telling the Brahmin that Angulimala was having an affair with the Brahmin’s wife. The Brahmin became enraged, demanding that Angulimala present him with a gift of 1,000 fingers, otherwise he would not teach him anymore. Angulimala was so desperately eager for spiritual knowledge that he took up the master’s challenge and killed by sword more than 1,000 people, but animals carried away most of the body parts, and he was left with only 999 fingers. He was determined to acquire the one remaining finger he needed, but people ran away when they saw him, so he decided to kill his mother, who he knew would never run from him. At that point Buddha used his magical powers to stop the maddened student, who would be reborn in hell for killing his mother. Appearing to Angulimala in the chase scene described, Buddha preached to him and taught him how to obtain enlightenment, inducing Angulimala to give up his sword and follow the Buddha’s teachings. Angulimala became an arahant, or saint.
THE GOLD LARNAX OF KING
PHILIP II
DATE: 336 B.C.E.
WHAT IT IS: A funerary chest containing the burnt bones of King Philip II of Macedonia that was placed in a tomb more than two thousand years ago and not discovered until the twentieth century.
WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE: The larnax is made of pure gold sheets folded and hammered into the shape of a box with four legs sculpted in the shape of a lion’s paws. It is ornately decorated with reliefs of intertwining plants, rosettes, and lotuses in two horizontal rows on its outer sides and, on its hinged lid, a Macedonian star with sixteen rays radiating from a circular center, which encloses a large gold rosette with a smaller blue enamel rosette inside it. The larnax measures approximately 16 inches by 13½ inches and weighs 17 pounds, 3.6 ounces.
Aigai (ancient Vergina), 336 B.C.E.
A special celebration is to take place in the city, the capital of the kingdom of Macedonia, an eastern Mediterranean state of southern Europe settled about seventeen hundred years earlier by the Thracians. Macedonia, the most powerful political entity in the region, is ruled by Philip II, who ascended the throne in 359 B.C.E. and judiciously continued his predecessors’ strategy of conquering independent city-states and uniting them under his leadership. Philip, a son of King Amyntas III, is at the peak of his power now, and has his eyes set on expanding his empire by conquering the formidable Asian kingdom of Persia.
Before daylight a large crowd gathers at the city’s amphitheater to watch the athletic games that are part of the wedding celebration of the daughter of King Philip II. Fanfare and revelry, not to mention, in these precarious times, an element of unease, fill the large outdoor arena where the Macedonian king will soon be joining the festivities in a royal procession. The wedding is a conciliatory gesture arranged by Philip after an altercation erupted at his own wedding the previous year to a high-born woman named Cleopatra. His new bride’s uncle had the indiscretion to deride another of Philip’s wives, Olympias, and in a drunken rage the king turned on his and Olympias’s son, Alexander. Olympias, shrewd, quick-tempered, and impetuous, fled with Alexander to her native Epirus, and to keep peace in his subjugated northern kingdom, Philip offered his and Olympias’s daughter to Olympias’s brother, the king of Epirus.
This was a turbulent time in Greece to be sure, but it was also a period of great enlightenment, during which some of the greatest thinkers of history were examining life, nature, and the universe. Aristotle was expounding erudite philosophy, Plato had died just a dozen years before, Hippocrates forty-one years before, and Socrates just sixty-three years earlier, in 399 B.C.E.
When his brother Perdiccas was mortally wounded in battle and he became the Macedonian king in 359, Philip determined to create a mighty military machine. He built an efficient, well-disciplined army with a cavalry and infantry that were armed with long pikes. Philip soon put his army into battle, and he conquered one city after another—Pydna, Potidaea, Amphipolis, Abdera, Maroneia, and Methone among them. Some peoples, like the Pheraens, beseeched mercenaries for military assistance, but Philip eventually subjugated most of the peoples he wanted for his empire. The battles were violent; cities were sometimes destroyed, people were mutilated. In combat at Methone, Philip himself was blinded in one eye.
The ornate gold larnax that contained the bones of King Philip II.
Over the years, Philip continued to march his army across Greece on a mission of conquest. Making an alliance with the Thebans, he defeated the Phocians at Delphi. He invaded the land later known as Bulgaria. He employed envoys to gain the support of city-states, paid mercenaries to refrain from supporting his enemies, and generally did whatever he had to do to enlarge his kingdom. But he wasn’t always successful. Some cities revolted, some military actions failed. Some city-states united against him in 338 B.C.E., but Philip engaged them in battle at Chaeroneia and dealt them a severe defeat. Philip organized a convention for the city-states of Greece the next year in which he installed himself as its head and formed a League of Corinth with a voting council; the league pledged support to Philip and
strove to keep peace among its constituent states. With southern Greece now under his rule, Philip was indeed at his highest moment of glory, and he covetously eyed Persia to seal his destiny as an invincible emperor.
Over the years Philip took many wives, and after the quarrel in 337 at his wedding to Cleopatra, he endeavored to maintain the kingdom of Epirus as his ally. Ever the savvy statesman, Philip had the sense to keep peace in his realm, even if it meant offering his own daughter’s hand in marriage. Keeping the support of his allies would be vital to Philip if he were to realize his dream of enlarging his empire. The conquest of Persia was no doubt a preoccupation on the day of his daughter’s wedding, but for now he would revel in the festivities.
A royal Greek wedding was a joyous celebration that could last several days and included a feast, games, and other events. Now an excited crowd that included leaders of the various Greek city-states was enjoying the games at the amphitheater of Aigai. Accompanied by his son Alexander and his daughter’s new husband, also named Alexander, King Philip II entered the theater in a procession that had commenced at his palace. But then, amid the throngs of people and soldiers, a man approached Philip and stabbed him to death.
Jumbo's Hide, Elvis's Ride, and the Tooth of Buddha Page 2
