DONDRA INSCRIPTION.
By T. W. RHYS DAVIDS, c.c.s., anuradhapura.
Like Cape Komorin on the continent of India, Dondra Head on the island of “Happy Lanka,” has always been a place of pilgrimage, and seems to have derived its sanctity from its being the extreme southerly point of land, where the known and firm earth ceases, and man looks out upon the ocean—the evermoving, the impassable, the infinite.
The worship of Neptune is no modern cultus, but even now when standing on those points, or on Siva’s rocky headland at Trinkomali, who does not feel a touch at least of the grand afflatus that inspired Byron’s hymn to the “far-sounding sea?” It is at least acknowledged that no one who cannot enter in some degree into the feelings which gave rise to the worship of nature can hope to understand the history of the religious movements of the world.
The history of the temple on the headland at Dondra is at present quite unknown. Sir E. Tennent[1] describes its destruction as follows:—
Dondera Head, the Sunium of Ceylon, and the southern extremity of the island, is covered with the ruins of the temple, which was once one of the most celebrated in Ceylon. The headland itself has been the resort of devotees and pilgrims, from the remotest ages. Ptolemy describes it as Dagana, “sacred to the Moon,” and the Buddhists constructed there one of their earliest dagobas; the restoration of which was the care of successive sovereigns. But the most important temple was a shrine which in very early times had been erected by the Hindus in favour of Vishnu. It was in the height of its splendour when, in 1587, the place was devastated in the course of the marauding expedition by which De Souza d' Arronches sought to create a diversion during the siege of Colombo by Raja Singha II. The historians of the period state that at that time Dondera was the most renowned place of pilgrimage in Ceylon, Adam‘s Peak scarcely excepted. The temple they say was so vast, that from the sea it had the appearance of a city. The pagoda was raised on vaulted arches, richly decorated, and roofed with plates of gilded copper. It was encompassed by a quadrangular Cloister, opening under Verandas, upon a terrace and gardens with odoriferous shrubs and trees whose flowers were gathered by the priests for processions. De Souza entered the gates without resistance; and his soldiers tore down the statues, which were more than a thousand in number. The temple and its buildings were over-thrown, its arches and its colonnades were demolished, and its gates and towers levelled with the ground. The plunder was immense—in ivory, gems, jewels, sandalwood, and ornaments of gold. As the last indignity that could be offered to the sacred place, cows were slaughtered in the courts, and the cars of the idol, with other combustible materials, being fired, the shrine was reduced to ashes. A stone door-way exquisitely carved, and a small building, whose extraordinary strength resisted the violence of the destroyers, are all that now remain standing; the ground for a considerable distance is strewn with ruins, conspicuous among which are numbers of finely cut columns of granite. The dagoba which stood on the crown of the hill is a mound of shapeless debris.
I have not been able to find Sir Emerson Tennent’s authority for stating that the Buddhists consecrated there one of their earliest dagobas: and the statement is in itself so unlikely that a good authority for it is all the more needful; and again—what can be the derivation of the name Ptolemy gives to Dendra, namely, Dagana? is it Dagoba? or is it Dewa—nagara? which becomes in Elu Dewu-nuwara, in modern Sinhalese Dewun'dara[2] and in the English corruption Dondra? No attempt has been made to repair the temple since its destruction by the Portuguese and Major Forbes[3] thus describes its state in 1840:—
“Dondera or Dewinuwara (city of the god), is situated four miles from Matura, on a narrow peninsula, the most southerly point of Ceylon, latitude 5° 50’ N. and longitude 80° 40’ E. Here, interspersed amongst native huts, gardens, and cocoanut plantations, several hundred upright stone pillars still remain: they are cut into various shapes, and exhibit different sculptures; amongst others, Rama, with his bow and arrows, may be discerned in various forms. A square gateway, formed of three stones elaborately carved, leads to a wretched ” mud edifice," in which four stone windows of superior workmanship are evidences that a very different style of building had formerly occupied the site of this hovel. It is now, however, the only temple of Vishnu at Dewinuwara; a station reckoned particularly sacred by his votaries, as being the utmost limit which now remains of his conquests when incarnate in that perfect prince and peerless warrior Ramachandra. Although his temple is so mean, the place still retains much of its sanctity; and an annual festival, which takes place at the full moon in the month of July, continues to attract many thousands of the worshippers of Vishnu. From the
