CEYLON

To Kandy, the ancient hill capital of Ceylon, thousands of devout pilgrims of high and low degree journey annually in midsummer. The pilgrimage is inspired not so much by the hope of catching sight of the supposed two-and-a-half-inch right eyetooth of Buddha as by the wish to see the dramatic spectacle of the Perahera, at once fantastic and splendid.

The sacred relic is enshrined within the richly jeweled vault of the Dalada Maligawa, Temple of the Tooth.

"Well, here we are! We have come all the way from Kashmir to see this show and we won't be disappointed." Such was the greeting from one of my two American friends on the balcony of the Queen's Hotel at Kandy. It was a beautiful, clear night and there was a strange undercurrent of tense excitement about the place. Elephants went swinging up the roads, their bells tinkling, and the multicolored crowds in the town were visibly swelling from the endless stream of holiday-bent villagers.

"I am sure you will find the Perahera a wonderful and thrilling sight," I told my friends, for as an alien long resident in Ceylon I felt that I spoke with the voice of authority. Indeed, through my acquaintance with some of the Kandyan chiefs, I had learned many of the legends associated with the festival.

There is a tradition that the Perahera processions have been held annually since the time when Buddha's Tooth was brought to Ceylon, hidden within the coils of the hair of a Kalinga princess, some eight hundred years after the death of the Hindu sage, about 483 B. C.

Despite the later wanderings and at times violent history of the Tooth-it was carried off to Goa, on the Indian mainland, in 1560 by the Portuguese, who maintain that the present relic is only a reproduction-the sacred festival has changed but little in barbaric splendor through the centuries.

To-day the Perahera also commemorates the birth of the God Vishnu, who first saw light on the day of the new moon in Esala (July-August).

Another version of the origin of the processions concerns the activities of a certain King Cajabahu, who is credited with having liberated 12,000 of his own people from foreign rule in India; then returned with them to his own domain, bringing in addition 12,000 captives and a number of sacred objects of which his kingdom had been despoiled 300 years previously. The celebration of this victory took the form of a great parade, which has been observed annually up to the present time.

The processions take place nightly over a period of 10 days, beginning with the first evening of the waxing moon in Esal. Each one has a special religious significance, but for the first five days the general public takes no active part. From the sixth evening on, everybody in town participates, even if only to carry a lamp or urge the dancers to further effort.

The wild and eerie effect depends largely upon the glowing torches and silvery light of a brilliant moon, for upon the "day" Perahera (only one procession takes place in daylight hours) the sunshine gives a garish touch to the glistening costumes. Perhaps the actors themselves feel the lack of spotlights and footlights which the stage of an eastern evening so amply provides.

My veranda overlooked the main street and provided an excellent point of vantage from which to see and to photograph the beginning of the day procession.

On the morning of the daylight procession my friends and I went first to the Temple of the Tooth, a small two-story structure, crumbling and ancient.

In a cool, dark room, upon a table of solid silver, is the golden, bell-shaped shrine, studded with jewels. Protected from all eyes except the sons of kings and other high personages to whom occasionally it is unveiled, the Tooth rests on a gold lotus-leaf mount. A wall of glass reaching from the ceiling to the floor…"