The Lion In The Sinhalese Imagination: Bestiality, Incest & New Beginnings

By R S Perinbanayagam –February 7, 2016

Prof. R.S.Perinbanayagam

The use of the idea of incest in narratives of one kind or another for what may be termed its thematic and logical implications is quite common in the texts of many societies, if not indeed of all societies. The Sinhalese use of it in the chronicles is truly a continuation of the uses made of it in other legends and myths as one instrument for the solution of certain narrative problems.

In his famous discussion of the structural approach to myth, Levi-Strauss deconstructed the Oedipus myth and observed, “The myth has to do with the inability for a culture which holds the belief that mankind is autochthonous . . . to find a satisfactory transition between this theory and the knowledge that human beings are actually born from the union of man and woman.” (1967:212) Having stated this problem, Levi-Strauss notes that this is obviously a problem that cannot be solved. Every human being is born out of a union of two others and each of those two was born out of the union of an earlier two and so on into an infinite regression. In a succinct explanation of Levi-Strauss’ position on the incest taboo and its occurrence in myths, Edmund Leach wrote:

Incest and exogamy are, therefore, the opposite sides of the same penny, and the incest taboo (a rule about sexual behavior) is the cornerstone of society – a structure of social and political relations. This moral principle implies that in the imaginary initial situation, the First Man should have had a wife who was not his sister. But in that case any story about a First Man or a First Woman must contain a logical contradiction. For if they were brother and sister then we are all outcomes of primeval incest, but if they were separate creations only one of them can be the first human being and the other must be in some sense other than human. Thus the biblical Eve, is of one flesh with Adam and their relations are incestuous, but he non-biblical Lilith is a demon” (1970: 57).

In the Buddhist texts, too, one can see a similar use of marriage, copulation and birthing. Besides the miraculous birth of the Buddha, there are other instances too. Here, I quote from the rendition of the origin of the Sakiya clan given in the Mahavatsu:

It appears that one of the ancestors of the Sakyas married a second time and this wife bore a son and she, demanded in the usual fashion, that he should inherit the kingdom and that the elder children should be banished. The elder children, both sons and daughters, were banished and lived with their retinue in the forest for a while. In time, the ministers who were banished with the royal children thought, “These youths are grown up. If they were with their father, he would make marriage alliances, but here it is our task.” So they took counsel with the princess, who said, “We find no daughters of Kshatriyas who are like ourselves (in birth) nor Kshatriya princess for our sister, and through union with those of unlike birth the sons who are born will be impure on the mother’s or father’s side. Let us consort with our sisters.” They set the eldest sister in the place of the mother and consorted with the rest. They “increased with sons and daughters” says the commentary by Buddhagosa from which the above is taken, and reported in Thomas (1956: 6-10).

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