Did the Buddha ever visit Sri Lanka?
I read with great interest the article that appeared in the Sunday Times of January 20, under the heading “Buddha’s first peace mission to Sri Lanka” by D.C. Ranatunga. This article is based entirely on the Mahavamsa, in particular with regard to the life of the Buddha. The version given in the Mahavamsa has no historical or pre-historical evidence in support. I would like to express a contrary view, based on the Buddhist canon (the Tripitaka). The view that I express takes the position that the Buddha never visited Sri Lanka.
In the Buddhist canon, no mention is made of the Buddha’s visit to Sri Lanka.
How did the Buddha come to Sri Lanka? According to the Mahavamsa, by air. In the Kevadha Sutta in the Digha Nikaya, Kevadha asked the Buddha to cause some monks to perform superhuman feats and miracles so that the people in Nalanda would have more faith in him. The Buddha replied that there are three kinds of miracles…the miracle of psychic power, the miracle of telepathy and the miracle of instruction. A monk displays various psychic powers in different ways. Being one, he becomes many, being many, he becomes one, and he travels in the body as far as the Brahma world. And what is the miracle of telepathy? Here, a monk reads the minds of other beings, their thoughts and pondering. Seeing the dangers of such miracles, I despise them...
The writer accepts the Mahavamsa story that the Buddha in arriving by air to Sri Lanka, performed a miracle, which he despised. The fact that the Buddha despised miracles, and did not resort to them is established by the fact that, when he heard that his father was unwell, the Buddha walked from Jetavanaramnaya to Kapilavasthu.
Who are the people at Mahiyangana, at the time of the alleged visit of the Buddha? Bintenne is the Sinhala name of the Pali name Mahiyangana. At that time, Bintenne, Uva, Gal Oya Valley were the home of the Veddas. They had no king to govern them. Mahanama (the author of the Mahavamsa) has plucked two names out of his hat and made them kings of the Yakkhas and the Nagas.
Mahanama himself contradicts his own version in chapter seven. There he says that the earliest kingdom was established by Kuveni. Even the Vijaya legend “according to evidence available, is not a historical account. Its value lies in the fact that it is a literary work, an epic poem, a product of the mind and not the story of the first Aryan settlement as it took place” vide “The Vijaya legend” Paranavitane Felicitation Volume (pages 263 to 279).
In fact, there were Aryan settlements in Anuradhapura from the 8th century onwards. Merlin Pieris in an article in the Royal Asiatic Journal says the Vijaya story seemed to have affinities with the encounter of Odysseus with Circe, the imprisoning of his followers by the Cyclops and his discovery of it by the footsteps that led into the cave where they were hidden.
Further, it is significant to note that all the sermons, the Buddha delivered are recorded in the Buddhist canon. There is no mention of the sermon he is alleged to have delivered at Mahiyangana. Further, the Buddha failed to prevent King Ajasathu and King Pasinudu, two disciples of the Buddha from going to war. Therefore, it is highly unlikely that the Buddha would come to a foreign country to settle a dispute between two unknown kings who were not even his disciples.
Ranjan C. Gooneratne
Colombo 5