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| Sunday, 26 December 2004 |
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The significance of Uduwap poya by Sumana Saparamadu In the yearly cycle of full moons, two are of special significance to Sri Lankan Buddhists. They are the full moon days of the months of Poson (June) and Uduwap (December). Poson full moon day marks the arrival of Mahinda Thera and King Devanampiya Tissa's conversion to Buddhism. It was a turning point in our history, as it was. Buddhism became the State religion.
The main purpose of the Therani coming to Lanka was to start the Bhikkhuni Sasana or Order of Buddhist nuns. The bringing of the Bodhi sapling was incidental. The King's sister-in-law Anula Devi, after listening to three or four of Mahinda Thera's expositions of the Dhamma expressed a desire to renounce the lay life and become a bhikkhuni. As the Vinaya rules did not permit a man to confer 'pabbajja' (ordination) on a woman, the Thera asked the King to send an envoy to Paataliputra, (modern Patna) the capital of Emperor Asoka to invite Sanghamitta Therani, the Emperor's daughter and his sister herself an erudite Bhikkhuni, to Lanka. The Thera also told the King to request Emperor Asoka to send a branch of the Maha Bodhi, under which the Buddha had sat at the time of his Enlightenment. The Bhikkhuni Sasana which Sanghamitta Therani inaugurated with the ordination of Anula Devi, grew in strength, of numbers and of erudition. Such was the recognition abroad that in the 5th century AD, two groups of Bhikkhuni's went to China and established a Bhikkhuni Sasana in Nanking, the capital of the Sung dynasty. But with the fall of Anuradhapura in 1017 AD the Bhikkhuni Sasana disappeared, leaving no trace of its existence anywhere in the island or any clue to its demise. However, the Bo sapling which the Therani brought from India and which was planted in the Maha Megha Garden in Anuradhapura, has survived 2238 years of droughts and disasters, some natural, some man-made. Dr. Senarat Paranavithana has stated that after intensive research even after Anuradhapura was abandoned and the city went under the jungle tide, pilgrims trickled through to make their offerings and supplications and invoke the blessings of the Jaya Siri Maha Bodhi the 'Victorious Illustrious Bodhi' ' truly a worthy appellation for a tree that has withstood so many calamities. Paul E. Pieris puts this very eloquently. "The axe of the ruthless invaders who for so many centuries to come, were destined to spread ruin through out the country, was reverently withheld from its base." Twenty three centuries after its planting the LTTE who massacred pilgrims within its sacred precincts did not touch or torch the Tree. Sir James Tennent, a British officer who travelled the length and breadth of the island, after seeing the once grand city of A'pura 'Shrunk to a few scattered huts' wrote in 1859. "That which renders the fallen city illustrious, even in ruins, is the possession of the Jaya Sri Maha Bodin Wahanse, the 'Victorious Illustrious Supreme Lord, the sacred Bo Tree,' the planting of which forms the grandest episode in the sacred annals of Ceylon'. Commenting on the antiquity of the Tree, Tennent wrote: The tree of Anarajapoora is in all probability the oldest historical tree in the world. Ages varying from one to five thousand years have been assigned to the baobabs of Senegal the eucalyptus of Tasmania, the Wellingtonia of California and the Chestnut of Mount Etna. But all these estimates are matters of conjecture whereas the age of the Bo-tree is a matter of record. "Compared with it, the Oak of Elerslie is but a sapling, the olives in the Garden of Gethsamane were full-grown when the Saracens were expelled from Jerusalem and the cypress of Soma in Lombardy is said to have been a tree in the time of Julius Caesar, yet the Bo-tree is older than the oldest of these by a century." In the fifth century, Fa Hien found the Bo-tree in good condition and noted that it was inclined to one side and that pillars had been erected to support its branches. Successive sovereigns have built walls around the parent tree, stone steps leading to the sacred enclosure, paved the enclosure with marble slabs, repaired and added to the building around and all these are recorded in the annals. They have held festivals in honour of the tree, A special festival for watering the tree had been held every 12th year since its planting. About 30 years ago a monk offered a gilded fence - Ran Veta to the Jaya Siri Maha Bodhi, and last year or the year before a second ran veta, its cost of construction paid for by public donations, was fixed round the tree. More books have been written on the Bodhi tree, in Sinhala and Pali than on the Dalada, the sacred Tooth Relic, and a host of beliefs and customs have grown round the tree. Let me quote Paul E. Pieris again. "It is doubtful if any other single incident in the long story of their race has seized upon the imagination of the Sinhalese with such tenacity as this of the planting of the aged tree. Like its plaint roots which find sustenance in the face of the bare rock and cleave their way through the stoutest fabric, the influence of what it represents has penetrated into the innermost being of the people till the tree itself has become almost human. "Till the tree itself has become almost human". Not this tree alone but all the trees that grew from its seeds, and even seeds dispersed by birds. Some trees are said to have more 'anuhas' (Power?) than others. Hence the popularity of Bodhi Pooja - the supplications and invocations of blessings on the sick, on the armed forces, on special occasions like anniversaries. The latest was a notice in a newspaper announcing a Bodhi Pooja at a well known temple to invoke blessings on students sitting the exam. The Pali stanzas recited at these pooja are those recited in veneration of the Buddha but the belief behind this ritual is that the Tree will grant the wishes and bless the devotee or devotees. The current wave of Bodhi Pooja goes back to the sixties started by Panadura Ariyadhamma Thera. Its popularity has spawned a host of booklets giving the rites to be performed and the stanzas to be sung. They became so prolific by the eighties and the Ven. Walpola Rahula Thera's comment, (in an article published in the Daily News) 'There are no Buddha Pooja now only Bodhi Pooja, is almost an indictment. Rituals are essential and have over the centuries been part of popular Buddhism, but has the current trend of Bodhi Pooja not gone too far? |
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It was, the chronicles say, on the Uduwap fullmoon day that same year,
that Sanghamitta Therani brought the branch of the Bodhi Tree to Sri
Lanka. Today is the 2238th anniversary of that land-mark event.
