It Rained

On the 10th of August 2006, the final day of the Aesala Perahera (the annual tooth relic procession in Kandy), I was sitting in Sinhala class when the skies opened up and let forth a deluge of rain.  It was the first rain of the season, and I noted it my journal at the time because the rain literally began at the moment that Punchi Meegaskumbura (mage guruwaraya) finished describing the legendary rain-producing power of the Tooth.  

The tooth relic, considered by many to be the most important corporeal relic of the Buddha (and certainly the most socially and politically relevant in Sri Lanka) was brought to the island in the 4th century A.D. whereupon it became a symbol of sovereignty; the "palladium of Sinhalese kingship" (as a side note: the British captured the relic in 1818, thereby symbolically assuring their political domination).  The relic developed as a symbol of sovereignty largely because of the understanding that it had rain-making powers, –  powers that legitimized a ruler's sovereignty by assuring his control over the (agricultural) prosperity of the kingdom.  

About one hundred years after its arrival, the dalada (tooth relic) and its perahera (procession) were described in the travel accounts of Fa-Hien, a Chinese monk who visited the ancient Sri Lankan capitol of Anuradhapura in the 5th century.  Fa-Hien's descriptions locate the perahera as having occurred during the height of the dry season, thereby tying the celebration of the relic to a petition for rain.  The relic now resides the in Dalada Maligawa (the Temple of the Tooth) in Kandy, and though it is featured in the annual perahera, the full exhibition of the relic occurs only once every seven or so years.  Well, the once-in-seven-years event happens to be occurring right now (for ten days–from the 6th of March until the 16th).  It seems that in consideration of the Central Province's current dry spell, the lay custodian of the relic (the diya vidana nilame - literally: "water-increasing-official") scheduled the exhibition for early March.  So, thousands upon thousands of people from all over Sri Lanka are making the pilgrimage to Maha Nuwara (Kandy) to see the dalada.  There are five separate lines into the temple and most people spend up to half the day waiting in one of them before they get a chance to get a brief glimpse of the relic.  

After three rainless months, the exhibition of the Tooth began yesterday.  At five o'clock, it rained.