Buddhist Ceremonies and Rituals of Sri Lanka

person is ill and medical treatment does not respond, the suspicion arises that it is due to
some influence of an evil spirit. The person to be consulted in such a case is the exorcist
known as kaþþadiyá or yakädurá or yaddessá 25 who would discover and identify the
particular evil spirit causing the disease and perform the appropriate tovil. There are also
certain forms of tovil performed as pregnancy rituals (e.g. raþa-yakuma) and others as
means of eradicating various forms of evil influences like the evil eye, evil mouth, etc.
(e.g. gará-yakuma).
The devil-dancers start their ceremony by first worshipping the Buddha, Dhamma, and
Sangha, as in the case of the bali ceremony. The yakkhas—who constitute one of the main
classes of malevolent spirits placated in devil-dancing—are believed to become satisfied
with the offerings made by people through tovil and cease harassing them. The yakkhas
like RìrI SannI Kalukumáraya, Súniyan, Mahásohon, Maru, etc. are some of the main
spirits placated. There are eighteen main yakkhas in this category, each representing a
particular kind of illness, and in tovil these demons are represented by the devil-dancers
themselves, who wear their specific masks and other apparel in keeping with the
traditional forms ascribed to these spirits. It is believed that by dancing, chanting, and
acting the part of the demons after assuming their likenesses through masks and other
paraphernalia, the demons possessing the patient would leave him. The sound waves
created by the drum-beat and the chanting of stanzas accompanied by rhythmic dancing
in keeping with these sounds are all performed to a set pattern traditionally laid down.
The collective effect of the ceremony is believed to cure the patient’s illness. Thus this
dancing in tovil is a therapeutic ritual. The impersonation of the demon by the dancer is
regarded as tantamount to the actual presence of the demon who becomes placated
through offerings, recitations, chanting, miming, etc. When the spirits are threatened
and asked to leave the patient, they are asked to do so under the command and in the
name of the Buddha.
The ceremony known as raþa-yakuma is performed to make barren women conceive, or
for the pre-natal care of pregnant women, and to ensure the safe delivery of children.
One of the episodes mimetically performed by the exorcist in this ceremony shows how
barren women, according to a Buddhist legend preserved among the Sinhala people,
offer cloths to the past Buddha Dìpaòkara, the fourth in the line of twenty-eight
Buddhas accepted by Theravada Buddhists; they obtain children through the merits of
the act. 26 Among the rituals specially connected with women may be mentioned those
devil-dancing ceremonies that invoke the yakkha called Kalukumáraya in Sinhala. He is
very often associated with another group of yakkhas called raþa-yakku, whose leader is a
female named Riddi-bisava. Another pregnancy ritual that deserves mention here is the
one known as kalas-täbìma (lit. setting apart a pot). When the first signs of pregnancy
appear in a woman, a new clay pot is filled with certain ingredients and kept apart with
the solemn promise that once the child is safely delivered a tovil will be performed. The
ritual known as hat-aðiya (seven steps) in the tovil ceremony called súniyam-käpìma,
signifies the seven steps the Bodhisatta Siddhattha is said to have taken just after he was
born.
Two important facts that emerge from this brief description of tovil is the theatrical value
present in these rituals and the way in which religious sanction has been obtained for
39