Myths have an important
role in most religions. The very basis
of some religions is a myth. Most of these myths are unconscious, i.e. they self-evolved
through misapprehension and hearsay, they were kept alive by devotion and gullibility
and in time became integrated into the religion and sometimes a central part of
it. But others were deliberately manufactured. Some time ago I became acquainted with just such an example
of this. About 15 years ago a leading Sri
Lankan newspaper ran a full-page story about a place called Pahiyangala, a cave
where it was claimed the Chinese pilgrim Faxian (Fa-hein) stayed while on his
way to Sri Pada when he was in Sri Lanka in about 410 CE. The cave is in the vicinity of Sri Pada and its name is, so it was claimed derived from
the pilgrim’s name; Pahiyan=Faxian,
gala=rock. Intrigued but sceptical I did a bit of research and was soon able to
dismiss the story as baseless and of very recent origin.
It is not difficult
to see the problems with the Pahiyangala myth. It starts at the very
beginning. Faxian mentions Sri Pada in
his travelogue, but he does not say he went there and thus he would not have stayed in the nearby
cave. He does not mention the cave
either. But even if he did go there that he, one of but many visitors, would
have been remembered is implausible in the extreme. And even if he had been
remembered he would have been known by his Sanskrit name, Dharmadassa, not his Chinese name.
And why, it could be asked, would people in Sri Lanka decide to name a location
after a (then) obscure foreign monk who stayed there for a day or two? Is there
any material evidence for the myth? Archaeological
investigation of the cave shown that it has been inhabited since prehistoric
times. Fragments of Chinese porcelain have been found there as they have been
in many locations throughout Sri Lanka. When
I visited Pahiyangala the old abbot showed me a small piece of such porcelain and with a straight face told
me that it was “Faxian’s cup”. This would have to be the Dubai Burj Khalifa of tall stories, and
the abbot knows it. Faxian was of course completely unknown in Sri Lanka and
most of the rest of the world until the publication of Samuel Beal’s translation
of his travelogue in 1884. In the decades after that Beals’s book must have
been read by English speaking Sri Lankan Buddhists and at some point the then
abbot of the Pahiyangala temple must have heard about it and the myth was born.
But why would the abbot (or whoever) do this. Did the original name of the cave
sound something like Faxian and he put 2 and 2 together and came up with 15? (I
have never been able to find out the pre-myth name of the cave). Did he do it
on a whimsy? Did he do it in the hope of attracting visitors to an otherwise
obscure and prosaic temple? I vote for this last possibility. The earliest mention I have been able to find to the Pahiyangala myth is in a YMBA Vesak Annual
from the early 1920s and I suspect that the story started around this time. But
it has only been in the last 10 or 15 years that the myth has really began to
get off the ground. The place now has its own website, it is mentioned in
several tourist guidebooks to Sri Lanka and newspapers and at least one airline
magazine occasionally feature it. About 10 years ago an official from the
Chinese embassy in Colombo visited Pahiyangala and donated a painting of Faxian (see picture) to the temple; anything to promote a bit of “China-Sri Lanka friendship”.
When I visit Bodh Gaya, Sarnath or other Buddhist
sacred places sometimes Pahiyangala story
pops into my head and I think: “I wonder...”
1 comment:
Never let the truth get in the way of a good story as they say.
Thanks for that one Bhante.
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