The rise of a wonderful thought

විශ්මිත අදහසක් පහළවෙයි

The Mahavamsa says that Choolodara - Mahodara two cobras lived in Lanka in the time of Buddha. It had not at least bothered to introduce them as human beings. It shows the attitude that they, the ones who were biased to the teachings of the Indian Brahmins, had over the people in Lanka. Because of this, it is not possible to keep the full confidence on their book - writings and attempt to build the true Hela history.

The meaning given to the name “ චූලෝදර  - Choolodara ” by the interpreters is “the one with a small belly”. “ මහෝදර  - Mahodara ” is “the one with a big belly”. Hence many names and interpretations are given for these two, Coolodara and Mahodara.

The real identification of these names which date back to the period of Buddha can be done with the help of the inscriptions. The inscriptions in Mullikulam Male and Vessagiriya can be used to identify this name, Choolodara. According to these inscriptions “ තුලදර - Thuladara ” is the name given for Choolodara. This mistake had been occurred when the time this name was taken to books. And also we can find facts from Vessagiriya which made Choolodara to be introduced as a cobra.

The inscription at Vessagiriya is as follows. 

" තුලදර නගය පුත දෙවහ ලෙණෙ අගත අනගත චතුදිශ ශගශ " 

“ Thuladara Nagaya Putha Dewaha Lene Agatha Anagatha Chathudisha Shagasha”

The term “තුලදර නගය - Thuladara Nagaya ” found in this inscription would have been the reason for calling  Choolodara as a cobra. The Indian ideologists, the Brahmins had done it purposely to insult the Hela history when they translated Seehalattakata  Mahavamsa in to Pali language. I believe that there is a very strange idea over interpreting this name as “තලදර - Thaladara” by the ones who took this inscription in to books. It will be fair enough to suspect that this inscription too had been defaced as the names found in the very ancient two inscriptions in Vessagiriya had already been defaced.

According to this “මහ හරුමහ - Maha Harumaha” mentioned here could be Mahodara. When these names are deeply analyzed, there is a chance to throw our thinking towards this idea. If that is the case, then, there is a strong reason to believe that there is a deep and hidden meaning of the incident mentioned in Mahavamsa, the incident over a fight for a chair which is embedded with gems, than it is explained to us.(1) A strange thought comes out that Buddha may have visited there for the incident related to travelling across the universe, Buddha may have stopped the idea and may have preached Dhamma for these two to cross over the ‘journey of becoming’.

1 - Mahavamsa records that there had been a fight between these two kings over a throne embedded with gems. Buddha had come there and consoled it. After that this throne had been offered to Buddha and He had sat in it and preached Dhamma. The original Stupa at Kelaniya had been built enshrining this throne. 

{The English translation of 'ඉසි රමණ විහර' (Isi Ramana Vihara)} - Part - IX 

Translated by Amal Meemanage (amalmeemanage@gmail.com)