Perennial Kandy pageant steps into Digital Age

By Kalakeerthi Dr. Edwin Ariyadasa

A popular television commercial issues an imperative to its viewers: “Hundred things you must do, before you die.” This functions as a potent appeal because it is tinged with an implication - to an undertone - of the inevitable vulnerability of life. The commercial, helpfully suggests that you should do these things, against the impending fading of life.

I quoted this modern instance, typified by the television commercial, with the specific intention of emphasising the totally different appeal of the perennial pageant known world over as the Kandy procession. (Nuwara Perahera.)

The quintessential core of the perennial pageant in Kandy, is perpetual renewal.

Sacred Tooth Relic

King Siri Meghavanna during whose reign the Sacred Tooth Relic was brought to Sri Lanka by Princess Hemamala and Prince Danta, deployed a miraculous far-sightedness, when he performed the initial Sacred Tooth Relic pageant, investing 900,000 gold coins - which indeed was a fabulous sum for that era. This was 1600 years ago.

With this royal gesture, he set up a precedent for the rulers to come, to perpetuate this sacred pageant, accepting regal responsibility for its renewal.

Rites and rituals, associated with the pageant were codified into rigid traditions that should be scrupulously promulgated by rulers age after age. Arrangements were made to institutionalise the extensive range of services, needed to ensure, that the process of renewal continued unabated.

What is interesting to note is the impressive manner in which the adoration of the Sacred Tooth Relic, entrenched itself in the folk life-style.

For the devotees who viewed the annual miracle year after year with profound fervour, the pageant became a reference point to keep track of the renewal of their own life.

As the rural folk grew up they could, while viewing the current pageant renew memories of their earlier experiences of the Kandy perahera.

In adult years, they could fondly recall, how they savoured the joy of viewing the perahera in the warm arms of their parents and elders.

As they reached adulthood the process of renewal took on added lustre.

Fulfilling

The courting couples basking in the glory of the sacred pageant experiencing the affection of the beloved companions, acquire a romantic memory that they could relish in later years when old age begins to creep in on them.

If the present perahera season is not totally fulfilling for one reason or another, they can always strengthen their sagging soul by telling themselves, “Let the pageant come round next time.”

This way, at a massive folk level, the annual pageant in Kandy is a welcome occurrence, bringing hope, assurance and renewal.

The erstwhile child who in the first instance took in the spectacle of the Kandy pageant, cosily occupying the vantage point of the arms of the doting parents, will eventually have his own offspring to be introduced to the wonder-world of the Kandy perahera.

This is a touching, wholesome human renewal. Those who are bred in the indigenous tradition, experience this feeling of renewal, overwhelmingly.

Their intimate feelings generated by the multiple viewings of the Kandy perahera form a ‘mental album,’ that could be readily referred to at will.

For the average Sri Lankan viewing the Nuwara Perahera is an inescapable event in the “life agenda.”

Visitors from abroad too experience this compelling urged to renew their encounter with this marvellous pageant.

Strangely enough, the pageant itself undergoes unceasing renewal.

When ancient kings decreed the pageant of the temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic they utilised the state-of-the art festival paraphernalia at their command in that era.

But, over the long sweep of centuries the pageant has undergone recurrent renewal. Today, Nuwara perahera and its ancillary adjuncts have all passed through various processes of renewal.

It could very well be said that the Kandy pageant has imperceptibly stepped into the digital age, reflecting all the nuances of advanced communications systems.

Spiritual

But, what is vastly satisfying is that its central spiritual essence and the accompanying aura of the sacred, still remain intact.

When you obtain a view of the glamorously caparisoned temple elephants stepping solemnly along the path of the pageant, you tend to think that the very first pageant of the Sacred Tooth Relic, held under the patronage of King Siri Meghavanna would have inspired the identical sense of awe and grandeur in the on-lookers of his day.

The pageant in Kandy marches through the holy history of our land, continuing to be enriched by recurrent renewals.

The Sacred Tooth Relic pageant in Kandy remains foremost among the perennial spiritual displays of the world, re-energised by each renewal.