Buddhist Ceremonies and Rituals of Sri Lanka

Coconut-oil lamps, an incense burner, water pots with full-blown coconut racemes (punkalas)
are among the items inevitably found on the scene. Offerings done on altars made
of plantain trunks and tender coconut leaves will also be found. A number of such altars
called pideni-taþu may be set up; these are for the departed kinsmen of the family (ñátipeta)
who are expected to stop harassing the living after receiving these offerings, which
generally consist of rice, seven selected curries cooked together (hat-máluwa), burnt
offerings (puluþu), coloured flowers, betel leaves, five kinds of seeds, etc. A live cock,
with its legs tied together so that it cannot run about, is placed in a corner as an offering
to the evil spirits. This is a kind of scapegoat, for all the evil influences of the patient are
supposed to be transferred to this bird, which is released on the following morning.
The ceremonies actually end early in the morning when the artists carry the clay images
(bali figures) and the altars of offerings or pideni-taþu and leave them at the cross-roads
that the evil spirits who give trouble are believed to frequent.
2. Tovil
Tovil or “devil-dancing” is another ritualistic healing ceremony that primarily belongs to
folk religion. As in the case of the bali ceremony, here too many Buddhist elements have
crept in and it has become a ceremony purporting to fulfil, at the popular level, the
socio-religious needs of the simple rural Buddhists.
Tovil is essentially a demonic ritual mainly exorcistic in character, and hence a healing
ceremony. In its exorcist form it is meant to curb and drive away any one or several of
the innumerable hosts of malevolent spirits, known as yakkhas, who are capable of
bringing about pathological states of body and mind. Petas or departed spirits of the
malevolent type, referred to as mala-yakku (mala = dead) or mala-peta, are also brought
under the exorcist power of tovil. While some of these could be subdued by the chanting
of pirit (described earlier), there are some for whom methods of a more drastic type have
to be adopted. The most popular of such methods is the tovil ceremony. 22
As was pointed out earlier in relation to rituals in general, tovil is also an important
aspect of folk religion that has been adopted by the Sinhala Buddhists. In the case of tovil
too, religious sanction is conferred on folk-religious elements that have crept into
normative Buddhism, supplementing, as it were, whatever is lacking in it to satisfy the
religious needs of the masses. The Buddha is the chief of living beings, who include the
yakkhas and other related non-human beings that figure in tovil. Although they have the
power to make their victims ill in various ways—such as by possession, gaze, etc.—they
have to leave them once propitiatory offerings of food, drink, etc., are made to them.
Even the mere mention of the Buddha’s virtues is enough to frighten them. Moreover,
the chief of the yakkhas, Vessavaóa (Vesamuni), is one of the four regents of the universe
(mahárája) and as such a devoted follower of the Buddha. The ordinary yakkhas that
trouble human beings have to obey his commands. Thus, in all rituals connected with
tovil, it is in the name of the Buddha and Vessavaóa that the yakkhas are commanded to
obey the orders of the exorcist. And in the rich folklore that deals with tovil, there are
many anecdotes that connect every ritual or character with some Buddha of the past or
with some Buddhist deity.
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