Note 77 — Chapter IX · KANDY

I recently received an account of the funeral in January 1888 of Mr. Rajapakse, a greatly respected Mudaliyar of the Governor’s Gate. The funeral procession, which was upwards of a mile in length, was preceded by the pipers of the 1st Battalion of Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders playing coronachs. Then followed eighty-three Buddhist priests of both the Amarapura and the Siam sects, led by three high priests. The hearse, which was drawn by four black horses, was followed by upwards of two hundred carriages (native and European); then came nearly three hundred servants and dependants from the principal estates of the deceased, and seven hundred mourners from other districts, also a file of fifty of the Lascorien Guard, in full official dress, and a band of piping musicians in strange ancient costume. To the music of the latter were added the efforts of forty-five tom-tom-beaters, who played the Dead March in real Oriental fashion.

At the grave the Buddhist priests chanted stanzas, a high priest delivered a funeral oration, and jasmine flowers were thrown into the grave.