Bud­dha’s first vis­it to Lan­ka

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Dur­u­thu Full Moon Poya Day is the first Full Moon Poya Day of the cal­en­dar year. It was on a day like this that the Bud­dha set foot on this land for the first time. This is the most im­por­tant in­ci­dent in the his­to­ry of Sri Lan­ka af­ter the Rama- Raw­a­na war which is said to have tak­en place in this coun­try more than three thou­sand and one hun­dred years ago.





Plac­ing of Kas­sa­pa broth­ers on the cor­rect path
The month of Dur­u­thu is sig­nif­i­cant for Bud­dhists al­so due to a num­ber of oth­er in­ci­dents. Be­fore pro­ceed­ing to Lan­ka Bud­dha put the very ar­ro­gant Kas­sa­pa broth­ers on the cor­rect path. Kas­sa­pa broth­ers, Ur­u­we­la Kas­sa­pa, Gaya Kas­sa­pa and Na­di Kas­sa­pa were ag­gres­sive­ly as­ser­ted or pre­sump­tu­ous Ja­ti­las with mat­ted hair who spent as­cet­ic lives at Ur­u­we­la with one thou­sand fol­low­ers. On Il Full moon poya day Bud­dha dis­patch­ed six­ty Ara­hants in­clud­ing the five Brah­min as­cet­ics (Pas­wa­ga­ma­ha­nu) in var­i­ous di­rec­tions to prop­a­gate the Dhar­ma and he him­self went to the Ur­u­we­la da­naw­wa to be of serv­ice to Ja­ti­la broth­ers and their fol­low­ers. Af­ter sub­ju­gat­ing them and put­ting them on the cor­rect path Bud­dha vis­ited Lan­ka. This most im­por­tant in­ci­dent took place dur­ing the sixth cen­tu­ry B.C. and dur­ing the ninth month af­ter the En­light­en­ment.





Yak­khas –De­scend­ants of Raw­a­na and his broth­er Vib­hish­a­na
At that time the in­hab­i­tants of this coun­try were Yak­khas who were de­scend­ants of Raw­a­na and his broth­er Vib­hish­a­na. De­scend­ants of the Na­ga tribe were the pre his­tor­ic in­hab­i­tants of Lan­ka. Yak­khas and Na­gas were in con­stant con­fron­ta­tion. There is a be­lief among Bud­dhists that God Su­ma­na Sa­man had in­vi­ted Bud­dha to put an end to that hos­til­i­ty. It was on this in­vi­ta­tion that He, the En­light­ened One set foot on Ma­hiyan­ga­na, Ma­ha­na­ga grove. At that time the Yak­khas had gath­ered there for a meet­ing. Bud­dha stood in the sky above Ma­ha­na­ga grove   where the Yak­khas were hav­ing the meet­ing. Bud­dha stood there ra­di­at­ing rays of light from His body more pleas­ant, clear, calm and gen­tle than the moon light. The ag­gre­gate of six col­ours form­ing a halo around the Bud­dha in sep­a­rate cir­cles viz, blue, yel­low red, white, crim­son and the col­our formed by the com­bi­na­tion. Yak­khas were not pre­pared to lis­ten to the Bud­dha as they thought that He was an in­vad­er on their he­redi­ta­ry land and Yak­kha sol­diers were up in arms. It was time for the Bud­dha to sub­ju­gate the Yak­khas. He set forth a ter­ri­ble drought, heavy rains and thun­der storms which Yak­khas could not en­dure. They were ter­ri­fied and re­al­iz­ed that the Bud­dha was a su­per­na­tur­al be­ing and turned sub­mis­sive. They obeyed the Bud­dha and beg­ged for His par­don.  The Bud­dha laid His piece of cloth “Path­ka­da” on the ground and af­ter sit­ting on it called the Yak­kha and Na­ga lead­ers and ad­mon­ish­ed both par­ties. Thus Bud­dha was able to cre­ate peace among them.





" The month of Dur­u­thu is sig­nif­i­cant for Bud­dhists al­so due to a num­ber of oth­er in­ci­dents. Be­fore pro­ceed­ing to Lan­ka Bud­dha put the very ar­ro­gant Kas­sa­pa broth­ers on the cor­rect path. Kas­sa­pa broth­ers, Ur­u­we­la Kas­sa­pa, Gaya Kas­sa­pa and Na­di Kas­sa­pa were ag­gres­sive­ly as­ser­ted or pre­sump­tu­ous Ja­ti­las with mat­ted hair who spent as­cet­ic lives at Ur­u­we­la with one thou­sand fol­low­ers "





Yak­khas gone to Giri di­vai­na
Ac­cord­ing to leg­end the Yak­khas who dis­persed had gone to “Giri Di­vai­na” not be­ing able to un­der­stand the words of the Bud­dha. God Su­ma­na Sa­man had un­der­tak­en to pro­tect Lan­ka since then. Ma­hiyan­ga­na Dag­a­ba which is al­so known as Miyu­gu­na Seya was built at the site of the Ma­ha­na­ga grove in Min­ipe where the Bud­dha had sub­ju­ga­ted the Yak­khas.

On the same day Bud­dha pro­cee­ded back to Ur­u­wel Da­naw­wa to be of serv­ice to Ja­ti­la broth­ers. He preach­ed the Dhar­ma from “Anan­tha Lak­kha­na Sut­ta “and all of them at­tained Ara­hat­ship.

Ac­cord­ing to leg­ends De­vas and Na­gas as­sem­bled at Ma­ha Na­ga grove in large num­bers and took ref­uge in the Tri­ple Gem. Among them was god Su­ma­na Sa­man who was a mem­ber of the De­va tribe from the cen­tral hills of Sri Lan­ka. This god at­tained “so­wan” or the first of the four paths or stages lead­ing to Nib­ba­na. God Su­ma­na Sa­man beg­ged for a rel­ic for wor­ship­ping and the Bud­dha gave him a lock of His Hair Rel­ic. God Su­ma­na Sa­man re­ceived the Hair Rel­ic in a gold cas­ket and en­shrined it in the Ma­hiyan­ga­na Seya which he built at the place where the Ex­al­ted One stayed. This was the first dag­a­ba built dur­ing the time of the Bud­dha.
Af­ter 45 years “Gree­va Dha­thu”, the Col­lar Bone Rel­ic was en­shrined in this dag­a­ba by Ara­hant Sar­ab­ha. This dag­a­ba had been ren­o­va­ted from time to time by var­i­ous kings such as Du­tuge­mu­nu, Dha­tu­se­na, Sir­i­san­ga­bo and Ag­bo.





Dur­u­thu Per­a­hera of Ke­la­niya Ra­ja Ma­ha Vi­har­aya
It is al­so dur­ing the month of Dur­u­thu that Dur­u­thu Per­a­hera of Ke­la­niya Ra­ja Ma­ha Vi­har­aya is held.





Bud­dha’s vis­it to the King­dom of Mag­ad­ha
Dur­ing the month of Dur­u­thu the Om­nis­cient One pro­cee­ded to the Mag­ad­ha King­dom ac­com­pa­nied by Ja­ti­la Ara­hants. This vis­it was made in keep­ing with an in­vi­ta­tion ex­ten­ded by Mag­ad­ha King Bim­bi­sara to the Bud­dha be­fore His En­light­en­ment.





Maj­es­ty of Ara­hant Ur­u­wela Kas­sa­pa
Hav­ing seen the Bud­dha with Ara­hant Ur­u­we­la Kas­sa­pa King Bim­bi­sara hesi­ta­ted to be­lieve that Ar­a­hant Kas­sa­pa was a dis­ci­ple of the Bud­dha. Re­al­iz­ing the king’s mis­con­cep­tion Ara­hant Ur­u­we­la Kas­sa­pa per­formed a Per­a­hera to in­di­cate that all the Ja­ti­la Ara­hants, in­clud­ing him­self were dis­ci­ples of the Bud­dha, King Bim­bi­sara and his peo­ple were very hap­py and de­vot­ed­ly em­braced Bud­dhism.

Bud­dha preach­ed the Dhar­ma and all of them took ref­uge in the Tri­ple Gem.  King Bim­bi­sara of­fered Ve­lu­wa­nar­a­maya to the Bud­dha. Bud­dha then made a pro­cla­ma­tion al­low­ing Bhik­khus to ac­cept mon­as­ter­ies when of­fered by dev­o­tees.





King Bim­bi­sara’s dream
King Bim­bi­sara saw in a dream that his de­ceased rel­a­tives were suf­fer­ing hav­ing been born gob­lins. Bud­dha preach­ed the Dhar­ma to of­fer mer­its to these gob­lins. On Dur­u­thu Full Moon Poya Day the Om­nis­cient One vis­ited Lan­ka for the first time and made this land a suit­a­ble place for Ara­hant Ma­hin­da Ma­ha Thera to es­tab­lish Bud­dhism. Thus, we, the pres­ent pop­u­la­tion of this coun­try are for­tu­nate to have pure Bud­dhism in our coun­try.