The Perahera and Kandy, the Sacred City

 

                                                       Throughout Sri Lanka, ceremonies and festivities regularly occur to commemorate important event or to invoke blessings for success and prosperity. If the event is linked with an abundant harvest, rain and fertility, then the presence of elephants is particularly profound, given their symbolic association with such fortune. At these celebrations up to hundred splendidly and colorfully attired elephants may parade. Such a procession is called a Perahera.

                                  There are many different Peraheras throughout Sri Lanka. At Kelaniya, ten kilometers east of Colombo, the Duruthu Perahera in January commemorates the Lord Buddha’s visit to that local. The February full moon is the time for the Navam Perahera at the Gangaramaya Temple in Colombo. Wesak, May, celebrates the Lord Buddha’s enlightenment; in June, Poson honours the arrival of Buddhism on the Island. In August, the god Kataragama rides atop an elephant in a Perahera to visit his lover Valli.

                                   In the context of a Perahera, elephants represent rain clouds, while the drums and the music represent the noises of thunder and water.

                                                       Perhaps the best known of the Peraheras is the one held in Kandy in July and August, the Esala Perahera. The festival’s splendour is self evident, but to appreciate its profound nature, it is worth looking into the history of Kandy, the home of Sri Dalada, the Sacred Tooth Relic of the Lord Buddha.

 

Kandy

                              Ensconced in the lush hill country of central Sri Lanka, Kandy is the cultural and spiritual capital of the island. Four hundred years ago, this city became the political centre chosen by the Sinhalese kings as they fled the rule of the Portuguese in the low country. The subsequent kings maintained a fierce independence against continued waves of colonial invasion from the Portuguese, the Dutch and then the British.

                                                       Finally, in 1815, the British succeeded in taking Kandy during the most formidable insurrection of the whole of the British colonial period in  Sri Lanka. The city remained under British rule until independence in 1948.

                                                       As the city that houses the famous Sacred Tooth Relic of the Lord Buddha, Kandy attains a symbolic sovereignty over the whole island and serves as a magnet for devotees of Buddhism from around the world.

                                 In Keeping with Buddhist custom, relics or remains of the Lord Buddha are highly revered as symbolic representations of the living Buddha. As such they have become a focus for ceremony. In Sri Lanka, no relic is so highly exalted as the Sacred Tooth Relic, which arrived on the island from India at the beginning of the fourth century A.D., hidden in the hair of a female devotee. In the 1,600 years since the Tooth Relic arrived, the rulers of Sri Lanka have taken extraordinary measures to protect it from falling into the hands of adversaries. The relic is a potent symbol for consolidating rule on the island.

                                                       In 1552, the relic was installed in a shrine in Kandy. Over the next 300 years it was removed many times to protect it from waves of colonial invasion. Finally, in 1853, 38 years after the British took Kandy, the rights to the temple and the sacred relics were handed back to the Kandyans, restoring to them their most cherished relic.

                                                       On the arrival of the Tooth Relic in Sri Lanka, the king decreed that it would be publicly displayed in a great annual ceremony. Today this commemorated as the Esala Perahera, one of the most celebrated and colorful festivals in Asia. Although the Perahera is now considered primarily a Sinhala Buddhist festival, its origins are deeply embedded in Hindu practice and mythology. The original purpose of the Esala festival was to appeal to the gods for increased fertility, rain and abundant crops. Indeed, the Tooth Relic itself is believed to have rainmaking powers, and its custodian, the Diyawadana Nilame (the water-increasing minister), is the most significant person charged with responsibility for the Esala ceremonies. These days the festival coincides with the end of a dry season in Sri Lanka, and many still attribute the subsequent rains to the Perahera.

                                                        Today the Perahera reveals a complex synthesis of Hindu and Buddhist practice, with participants from the Buddhist temple and the shrines of Kandy’s four deities. Every night, as the dusk falls, drummers, horn blowers, dancers, fire walkers and whip crackers accompany elaborately adorned elephants in procession. Prominent in the procession is the holy tusker, which carries the golden casket housing the relics of the Lord Buddha.