of the doings of Mahasena's son Sirimeghavanna.[52] Judged
by the standard of the Mahavihara, he was fairly satisfactory. He
rebuilt the Lohapasada and caused a golden image of Mahinda to be made
and carried in procession. This veneration of the founder of a
local church reminds one of the respect shown to the images of
half-deified abbots in Tibet, China and Japan. But the king did not
neglect the Abhayagiri or assign it a lower position than the
Mahavihara for he gave it partial custody of the celebrated relic
known as the Buddha's tooth which was brought to Ceylon from Kalinga
in the ninth year of his reign and has ever since been considered the
palladium of the island.

2

It may not be amiss to consider here briefly what is known of the
history of the Buddha's relics and especially of this tooth. Of the
minor distinctions between Buddhism and Hinduism one of the sharpest
is this cultus. Hindu temples are often erected over natural objects
supposed to resemble the footprint or some member of a deity and
sometimes tombs receive veneration.[53] But no case appears to be
known in which either Hindus or Jains show reverence to the bones or
other fragments of a human body. It is hence remarkable that
relic-worship should be so wide-spread in Buddhism and appear so early
in its history. The earliest Buddhist monuments depict figures
worshipping at a stupa, which was probably a reliquary, and there is
no reason to distrust the traditions which carry the practice back at
least to the reign of Asoka. The principal cause for its prevalence
was no doubt that Buddhism, while creating a powerful religious
current, provided hardly any objects of worship for the faithful.[54]
It is also probable that the rudiments of relic worship existed in the
districts frequented by the Buddha. The account of his death states
that after the cremation of his body the Mallas placed his bones in
their council hall and honoured them with songs and dances. Then eight
communities or individuals demanded a portion of the relics and over
each portion a cairn was built. These proceedings are mentioned as if
they were the usual ceremonial observed on the death of a great man
and in the same Sutta[55] the Buddha himself mentions four classes
of men worthy of a cairn or dagoba.[56] We may perhaps conclude that
in the earliest ages of Buddhism it was usual in north-eastern India
to honour the bones of a distinguished man after cremation and inter
them