Kong Posh: Buddha’s Tooth! (Worshiped by Four Hundred Million)

Sham S. Misri

Lord Buddha died 543 years before the Christ was born. His body was cremated in a sandalwood pyre in India. According to Buddhist tradition, after the Buddha's body was cremated, four teeth and three bones were removed from the ashes. These relics were not sent to the eight stupas built to keep the remains. A belief grew that whoever possessed the Sacred Tooth Relic had a divine right to rule that land. Wars were fought to take possession of the relic.

One version of the story tells that a left canine tooth of the Buddha was given to the King of Kalinga, an ancient kingdom on the east coast of India. This tooth was enshrined in a temple in the capital. Hidden in the hair of a princess, the tooth was smuggled into Sri Lanka during the 4th century AD. The King of Ceylon was a devout Buddhist, and he received the tooth with boundless gratitude. He placed the tooth in a temple in his capital. He also declared that once a year the tooth would be paraded through the city so that the people might give it honour. The Sacred Tooth Relic came to be regarded as a symbolic representation of the living Buddha and it is on this basis that there grew up a series of offerings, rituals, and ceremonies.

A Chinese traveller witnessed this procession in about the year 413 CE. He described a man riding a beautifully decorated elephant through the streets, proclaiming when the procession....................
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