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| Sunday, 20 June 2004 |
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The God given plant Sunday parable by Sunanda Mahendra In Sasa Jathaka, this is one of the well known stories of Buddha's birth. Sakra, the chief of Gods is testing the pious qualities, especially the selflessness of living creatures in this story. The Sakra, disguised as a hungry old man came to a place where animals met each other in a relaxed mood.
The old man who was none other than the God of Gods, realised what a great pious quality the hare possessed. In order to show to the whole world the great character of the hare, the Sakra started drawing its picture on the moon. Thus, even today, the picture of the hare is seen on the moon. This is just the preamble to our parable. Once the picture of the hare was drawn, the Sakra dropped the paint brush on to the ground. It swooped down straight on to the lap of the Naga King in the world of Nagas. The Naga King wanted to see what it was and found that it looked like a queer stem that could be planted on the ground. So he summoned his guardians and said. "Plant this carefully and see what comes out." The guardians were surprised to see a plant with green leaves sprouting out on either side. "This is surely a medicinal herb?, the Naga King said, tasting a leaf, and naming it bulat meaning born on the ground (bu, meaning the ground, lat, meaning grew). So the plant that grew on the Naga ground came to be known as bulat. And though the bulat or the betel plant was first grown in the world of Nagas, the humans wanted to possess it as well. As a result of this desire, the humans, secretly crept into Naga world and robbed the plant in order to bring it to the Manulova or the world of humans. But humans thought that the betel chewing invigorated them and formulated that habit. As a mark of reverence to the Nagas, who first obtained the betel plant, the humans have the habit of splitting a little piece of the edge of the leaf and throwing it off, while a major part of the leaf is crunched and chewed. A betel plant was seen in all old ancestral houses. The offering of a meal should always be followed with betel. This is denoted as 'batha bulatin sangraha kota' (a meal of rice inclusive of betel). The betel is also called Nagavalli or the creeper of Nagas. For almost all rituals a sheaf of betel is included. The pirit string or the pirit nula, is rolled onto a betel leaf. In this manner according to Sinhala folklore, the betel plant is God Sakra's gift. As such betel is symbolic of the best of gifts offered by one person to another at all occasions. |
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He asked them to give him food as he was hungry. While most other
animals said they had nothing to offer, the hare (sasa) wanted to offer
his own flesh in sacrifice to the old man. So he asked the old man to make
a fire. When the old man made a fire the hare came running and jumped into
the fire, sacrificing itself as food for the old man.
