Soothsayers, Oracles and clairvoyants who changed the course
of history of the nation
History of our nation had been full of soothsayers and prophesies. The beginning itself starts with a prophesy; Sinhabahus mother’s parents were told by soothsayers when she was just a princes that she will be a bad girl and one day she will cohabitate a lion. Now she tries to live up to the prophesy, run away from palace and joins a inter-country trade caravan in disguise. The caravan, is attacked by a gang of bandits I suppose and whilst traders run away, the runaway princes runs towards probably the gang leader and befriends him.
The bandit takes the princes and a nation is born. Three
generations down, king Panduwasdewa is told that his daughter’s son will kill
his uncles and become the king. So everybody gets together and setup the stage
for that to happen. At the end the prince raises an army kill 8 out of his ten
uncles and make the other two, one, the night king and mayor of the capitol and
the other a provincial ruler of province called Giri. If the prophesy was not made perhaps
Pandukabaya wouldn’t have been sent out, trained secretly by Brahmin Pandu ,and
given money to fund the army . So it was not the prophesy , it is the subject actors
trying to make the prophesy true.
Then few generations down prince vatta gamini abhaya kills the usurper who
killed his brother , the previous king to make himself king but he
doesn’t even have few months to consolidate his reign before receiving a letter
from a pretender called Thissa. Apparently this Thissa has been told by a
soothsayer that one day he will become king and he doesn’t want to wait until
prophesy takes place, he raises an army and sends a letter to king asking for peaceful
transfer of power.
Reigning king however managed to get rid of him because coincidently
an Indian invasion takes place exactly at that time. Otherwise this prophesy
would have even prevented building of Abhayagiriya and also writing of three
pitaka at mathale because both these events and many other buildings ,
including Dambulla temple was built by king Vatta gamini abhaya.
And another strange prophesy changes the history right after
the reign of king Yasalalaka Thissa , of Suba saha Yasa fame. In the middle of
his period in office , he was told that a person called Vasabha will kill him
and usurp his kingdom. He doesn’t waste
time although he has come into this kingship through a joke. He orders
everybody in his kingdom with the name of Vasabha to be killed. One Vasaba, who
lives in the household of king’s army commander escapes killing spree and raises
an army. He defeats the king and marries the widow of his uncle, the army commander
who falls in the final battle. Even here, if king was not killing all the
Vasabas , this vasaba wouldn’t have
escaped and raise an army.
There are many more examples like sirisangabo chapter where
Prophesies are changing history not because they are true but because somebody taking
them seriously and trying to make them, take place. Sounds familiar?
