Page:The Tamils Eighteen Hundred Years Ago.djvu/182



The Mani-mêkalai, or more properly, Mani-mêkalai-thuravu, as it is named by the author himself, is an epic poem describing the circumstances under which Mani-mêkalai, the daughter of Kovilan, renounced the world and took the vows of a Buddhist nun. The work is specially valuable as a record of the extent to which Buddhism had spread in Southern India, Ceylon and Sumatra, in the early part of the second century A.D. : and its value is enhanced by the fact that it is much older than the Chinese works of Fa Hian and Hwen Thsang, and the Pali chronicles Dipawanso and Mahawanso of Ceylon. It is, I believe, the earliest record extant in any language, with the exception of the Buddhist sacred texts, which furnishes information regarding the objects of worship, the peculiar beliefs and superstitions, and the abstruse philosophy of the followers of Buddha. We learn from the poem that Buddhist monks were numerous in the Tamil-land, and that some of them, at least, claimed wonderful powers, such as the ability to know the past and foretell the future; and that they believed in charms and incantations, and in the existence of spirits which could communicate with human beings. The author, Cheeththalaich-châttanar, who appears to have been a learned and zealous Buddhist, following the traditions then current regarding the journeys of Buddha through the air, and his knowledge of previous births, describes the heroine of the poem also, as travelling through the air and performing various other miracles. I shall now give briefly the story of the Mani-mêkalai, reserving the references to Buddhism till I come to describe the religions which prevailed in Tamilakam.

The yearly festival held in the city of Pukâr in honor of Indra, the king of the celestials, was drawing near. Ever since the festival had been founded by the Chola king, Thodi-thôdchembiyan, renowned as the hero who destroyed the wondrous