(2) All For The Love Of A Beautiful Maiden

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Sunday, July 18th

Our guide Adjith, with long Buddha ears himself, let us in on the history of his country. First stop was the Hindu temple dedicated to Scanda, Ganesh’s brother. Ganesh is the Hindu god of protection and the breaking down of obstacles. He has an elephant head. The story goes that Scanda and Ganesh’s father put the two brothers to a challenge to circle the world. Scanda rides on a peacock which can fly and Ganesh rides on a rat. It is much like our story of the tortoise and the hare. The clever Ganesh put all of the bodies of water in one big pool and then on his rat rode around them three times. The brother, having lost the race flees to Sri Lanka where he falls in love with a beautiful maiden. Ganesh full of remorse for having tricked his brother finds him and tries to make amends. However, Scanda asks for Ganesh to help him win the maiden’s heart so Ganesh changes himself into an elephant to scare the woman to run into Scanda’s arms. However she faints from fright and the holy water that was supposed to redeem Ganesh’s true body is used to revive the maiden. Ever since Ganesh has been part man, and part elephant. He even has a part of his trunk missing whenever he is depicted because he tried to change himself back by brute force.

At the temple they smash coconuts to get rid of the evil eye and the offerings of fruit are said to lose all of their taste after they’ve been offered because Buddha has filled his belly with their flavor. Devotees get marked with cow dung ash over their third eye because Lord Shiva is known to ride on a cow. From there we went through a vegetable, fruit and fish market and Adjith told us all about how each could be used medicinally. Banana flowers induce abortions and there are 16 different varieties of bananas. Plan C anyone?

There are 56 letters in the Singhalese alphabet. The street signs look like elegant works of art, even if they are totally incomprehensible which induces a feeling of vulnerability. It’s a beautiful language, rolling and melodic. Unfortunately although we went to lots of wonderful places don’t ask us where they were because we can not keep the complicated names in our head. Panduwasnuwara, for example, was our first stop which dates back to the first century B.C. It is notable because the queen fell in love with a monk and the king had him killed in a hot oil bath. Believe it or not, 2,300 years ago they had indoor toilets with a very complicated filtering system which was in stark contrast with the squat toilets we often encountered and we wished that the empire had not been defeated.

Next stop was Yapahuwa, a fascinating rock fortress holding the sacred tooth relic of Buddha. Thousands of steep steps leading up to the top made it nearly impossible for the enemies to ascend. If mom was an invading enemy she would have had to retreat defeated. There was a small city on top of the rock that used windmills for their irrigation system - an incredible feat for the 13th century.

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Photos

Yapahuwa
Can you see me on the right?