Citta -- What a story..who borrowed from whom

Panduvasudeva had 10 sons and a daughter.The eldest son was Abhaya. The daughter was Citta. She was called Ummadacitta because she drove men insane by her good looks.  The soothsayers predicted that Citta's son will kill his nine uncles (except Abhaya) to become the king of Lanka. Therefore,  King Abhaya kept Citta in seclusion  in a chamber build on a pillar.  However, in spite of all the precautions taken to keep Citta from seeing men, she had a love affair with a first cousin and was pregnant. The royal family then decided to give Chitta in marriage to her lover but to kill the off spring if it happened to be a boy. The story as narrated by the author of Mahavamsa about Chittas son Pandukabhaya is  another fairy tale embellished by many such popular stories involving non-humans helping Citta's son to survive and fight and kill all his nine paternal uncles and gain the throne of Lanka. The detailed stories belong in the realm of folklore and are omitted in this write up.

According to Mahavamasa author, Pandukabhaya established the village boundaries over the whole island of Lanka ten years after his consecration. Pandukabhaya had two non-human associates Kalavela and Cittaraja who were visible in bodily form. He also had devils (yakkas) and non-humans (bhutas) as his close friends.  Pandukabhaya ruled for 70 years in Lanka living in Anuradhapura that he made the capital city of Lanka. Pandukabhaya was succeeded by his son Mutasiva and he reigned for 60 years in Anuradhapura. Mutasiva had ten sons and two daughters. The second son Devanampiyatissa became king after Mutasiva's death.

Analysis:
The prophesy of the soothsayers that Citta's son would kill all his uncles and their various attempts to kill him in his childhood are similar to the biblical narrative of infanticide by Herod the Great. While attempting to find out who borrowed these yarns from whom at what point in time could be a futile effort, it is prudent to discard these attempts to connect the dots of Sri Lankan history with no substantial supporting evidence, as they  are at least 800 years separated from the time they are supposed to have occurred from the time they were written by the author of the Great Chronicle. However, the great pains taken by the Mahavamsa author to narrate the lineage of the early rulers by these stories apparently show that successive waves of warriors and their kinsmen arrived and settled in the northern part of Lanka during the pre-historic times of Sri Lanka. The non-humans referred to as yakshas (devils), as shown earlier could be the tribal people who the warriors brought along with them for colonizing the newly found land of Lanka. The names of the humans as well as the devils mentioned in these stories clearly indicate a south Indian (Pandyan) connection Sri Lanka had during the time of colonization of Lanka by the Indian people.

Ravana -- The brahmarakshssa (cross between a brahmin and a devil)

The Villan Lankeshvara – Emperor of (Sri) Lanka Ravana
Written on August 17, 2013
By Jay Hettiarachchy

Ravana is portrayed as the “bad guy” and enemy of Rama who was the heir to the throne of Ayodya in North India (the good guy) in Ramayana  a classical epic believed to have been authored by Valmiki during the period approximately between 5^th and 4^thcentury B.C. in Northern India. Ravana, according to Ramayana is a Brahmarakshasa (of mixed birth between a Brahmin father and a Rakshasa mother) king of Lanka (Sri Lanka). Rama and Ravana are the central characters depicted in Ramayana.

Ramayana is not only a narrative of the “war” between Rama and Ravana, but also a war between North India and Lanka (Sri Lanka of today). According to Ramayana, Ravana kidnapped Rama’s wife Seeta, in retaliation of Rama and his brother Lakshmana for having cut off the nose of Ravana’s  sister Suparnakha who tried to seduce Rama when he was in exile. In the war that ensued in Lanka, Ravana was finally killed by Rama in battle and Seeta was rescued.

Rama, the hero of the Ramayana, is one of most popular deities worshipped in the Hindu religion. Each year, many devout pilgrims trace his journey through India and Nepal, halting at each of the holy sites along the way. The poem is not seen as just a literary monument, but serves as an important component of Hinduism, and is held in such reverence that the mere reading or hearing of it, or certain passages of it, are believed by Hindus to free them from sin and bless the reader or listener. Rama's return to Ayodhya and his coronation are celebrated as "Diwali" also known as the Festival of Lights.

Ravana is described as having 10 heads and 20 arms and is vividly portrayed in Rajasthani painting of incidents of the Ramayana, flying away with Seeta, fighting with Rama, and sitting with his demon councilors (Source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ravana)

Ironically, the epic Ramayana is not as popular in Sri Lankan society as in India. On the contrary, Ranvana is as much worshiped as a popular deity in India as Rama and not as much or as enthusiastically in Sri Lanka. There are many popular places of worship of Ravana in India than in Sri Lanka. In the Buddhist variant of Ramayana, Dasaratha was the king of Benares (Varanasi) and not of Ayodhya. Nonetheless, there is an extensive tradition of oral story telling based on the Ramayana in Indonesia, Cambodia, Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Laos, Vietnam, and Maldives.

Analysis:

There is no historical evidence of a Lankeshvara Ravana (emperor Lankeshvara) who lived in (Sri) Lanka or usurped a wife of the heir to the throne of Ayodhya in North India although some attempts have been made by some people in Sri Lanka  to make believe the Ramayana story of a war that took place between a Rama and a Ravana. Moreover they believe that Rama was aided by a monkey king Hanuman who built a bridge between south India and (Sri) Lanka to bring an army of monkeys to fight with Ravana and kill him and save Seeta from captivity.

Such stories are prevalent in most primitive societies in which gullible people live and pass them down to the younger generations who continue to propagate them generation after generation.