Note 22 — Chapter III · COLOMBO
Reading edition
In Robert Knox’s fascinating account of his twenty years of honourable captivity in the heart of Ceylon, from A.D. 1659 to 1680, he describes how religious mendicants carry about a small image of the Buddou, covered with a piece of white cloth. ‘For this god, above all others, they seem to have a high respect; ... ladies and gentlemen of good quality will sometimes, in a fit of devotion to the Buddou, go a-begging for him. Some will make the image of this god at their own charge. Before the eyes are made, it is not accounted a god, but a lump of ordinary metal, and thrown about the shop with no more regard than anything else; but when the eyes are to be made, the artificer is to have a good gratification, besides the first agreed-upon reward.’
‘The eyes being formed, it is thenceforward a god, and then, being brought with honour from the workman’s shop, it is dedicated by solemnities and sacrifices, and carried with great state into its shrine or little house, which is before built and prepared for it.’