Mihintale: Where historic sites mark a momentous sacred event
View(s):“Monks are we, O great King, disciples of
the King of Truth.
Out of compassion for you have we come
from Jambudipa”
Thus spake Thera Mahinda to the King of Lanka after he had called out to him: “Tissa, Tissa.” King Devanampiyatissa (307-287 BC) stopped in his tracks, annoyed at this all too familiar manner of addressing him. Looking up he saw on a high rock a brown-clad monk with four others similarly robed, and a lay person. The saintly graciousness of the monk so impressed the king that he dropped his bow and arrow and bent low to the monk in respect.
This meeting took place on the full moon day in June in 306 BC, 236 years after the death of the Buddha. The day being festive, the king had gone deer hunting to Missakha-pabbatha (now named Mihintale) eight miles north east of the capital city, Anuradhapura.
Mahinda Thera had arrived in Lanka on the bidding of his father, Emperor Asoka of India, to whom King Devanampiyatissa had appealed for the new teaching that was spreading through India. The great Emperor Asoka, hitherto a merciless conqueror of lands and peoples, had converted to Buddhism, thus earning the epithet Dharma to be known henceforth as Dharma Asoka. Thus did the Indian Emperor send his only son Mahinda who had donned robes when he was 26 years of age, to a friendly neighbouring country. The monk arrived in Sri Lanka at age 32 with the Teaching of the Buddha to preach to the king and people of the land.
Mahinda Thera was invited to reside in Anuradhapura for which purpose a garden was created – the Mahamegha Uyana, in which, later, the Bo sapling was planted, still living as the world’s oldest historical tree. Mahinda Thera, however, preferred to live in Mihintale and thus the wonderful sites and stupas, ponds and halls seen as ruins or reconstructed in this hilly area. He gave to the King and country the Theravada Canon of orthodox Buddhism that had come down the years in the oral tradition. In addition, his visit and conversion of the country to Buddhism ushered in a peaceful socio-religious revolution which also introduced a new civilization of art and culture. Lanka reputedly had a degree of civilization when Thera Mahinda arrived, and Buddhism surely would have been observed since there was trade and communication with India. Thera Mahinda’s visit converted the King and Court and Buddhism became the state religion.
The very ambience of Mihintale is arresting. The first ruin seen before the ascent is a stone trough for immersing patients in medicines in the believed-to-be first hospital in the world (885-887 AD). Frangipani trees with their large white flowers line the sides of 1840 rock hewn steps that lead to the sacred area, the stairway constituting a forerunner to the other ancient sites.
At the top of the steps is flat ground with a small stupa behind which is the sheer, roughly conical shaped rock, the aradanagala. Its summit is 1000 feet (300 metres) above ground level and is believed to be the spot on which Thera Mahinda and his five companions stood watching King Devanampiyatissa hot in pursuit of a deer. A huge stupa – Ambatthala Chetiya or Maha Stupa is reached by climbing another flight of steps. Descending along a steep twisty path with steps cut in, or naturally carved, a flat rock face with a sheer drop at one end is reached. This is believed to be Thera Mahinda’s bed. He was an Arahant, thus he could very well have slept on this stone slab.
Shrouded in an atmosphere of utter stillness imbued with an intangible air of mystery are two ponds which are rock-hewn. Kaludiya pokuna, – ‘black water pond’ – has dark water even on the brightest of days, its bottom not seen, shrouded as it is by trees and bushes and cupped by dark granite. It is 200 feet long and 70 feet wide, and roughly rectangular in shape. The other pond named Naga Pokuna, of almost the same size and more elliptical in shape, has at its farther edge where water meets rock, a five-headed cobra, etched in light relief. Not only are the ponds exquisitely quaint but they go to show that many monks resided at Mihintale and needed not one pool but two for their daily baths.
Another indication of the large numbers who would have occupied the 68 caves hewn from rock on orders of the King, are the two large stone troughs 23 feet in length that lie in the flat area toward the bottom of the hill. The ruins here are believed to be that of the monks’ refectory. The troughs were for dishing out cooked rice.
Mihintale is within the UNESCO Cultural Triangle. To Buddhists, Mihintale is particularly significant and sacred since here is the spot where the religion was introduced to this island; a gentle religion which if adopted as a way of life is believed to lead to peace and, ultimately, to the cessation of the samsaric cycle of births and deaths.
- Nanda P. Wanasundera