Mediaeval Sinhalese Art c8.s1.7

c8.s1.7

The first book read and learnt after the alphabet was the *Nampota*, a list of important places and temples, practically an elementary geography of Ceylon; next came *Mangul-lakuṇu*, a description of the 216 auspicious marks on the soles of the feet of Buddha, in which book Sanskrit words appear, followed by sentences in Pali. Everything had to be learnt by heart and repeated perfectly; much or all of the material so learnt was not understood at the time, but laid a sure foundation for more advanced studies. The books next read were *Gaṇa-devi-hēlla* (account of the youth and education of Gaṇeśa), *Vadan-kavi-pota* (grammar, orthography, &c.), *Buddha-gajja* (praise of Buddha in Sanskrit), *Sakas-kaḍa* (prose with difficult combinations of words; there is a saying “the tongue that hath not uttered Sakas-kaḍa is like a white ant’s”). After these came Nāmaṣṭa (Sanskrit ślokas on Buddha, and Sinhalese paraphrase); Navaratna (‘nine gems,’ nine verses of high value uttered by nine Pandits at the court of Vikrama); Vyasakāra, Pratyaśataka, Anuruddha śataka, Bauddha śataka (or Bhakti śataka), Sūrya Sataka, Vrittamālava, Vrittamālākhyāva, Amara Siṃha (i.e., Amarakosha, the Sanskrit vocabulary), all in Sanskrit: these works completed a thorough general education; a majority of students did not, of course, proceed so far. If, however, the student was intended for a learned profession, as astrology or medicine, or for the priesthood, he now proceeded to specialise; he would read, for example, Yoga-śataka (Ariṣṭa śataka) as his first book in medicine. If intended for the priesthood he would study Pali.