Mediaeval Sinhalese Art c10.s2.19

c10.s2.19

“Hail! Oh ye Ganges, Jamna, Godāvari, Sarasvati, Narmada, Sindhu (Indus) and Kavērī, come and approach (hallow and purify) this water.” This is an invocation of the seven sacred rivers of India, a prayer that the ceremonial may be, as it were, a lustration with the very waters of these sacred rivers.† It has also a mystical interpretation.‡ The foreman, while thus purifying himself by ceremonial bathing, cut the water with his sword (cf. diya-kēpīma or water-cutting ceremony performed by the kapurāla of a dēvāle after a perahera; see p. 39); and after that the vessel was shattered. Returning to the vihāra, the doors, carefully closed after the ceremony, were opened, and the foreman stood on the threshold facing the people who cried, ‘kartri darisenayaṭa ava,’ i.e., the patron has come to see the work’; for so it was, and he now approached the door and gave presents into the hand of the kāraka (craftsman). These the latter handed to a pupil, and taking water repeated mantrams§ and sprinkled the people.