Siri Sara Bulath Vita Kaala Balan

S.R. Pathiravitana

My eldest son and my youngest grandson, both married, are betel chewers. How they acquired this habit, I do not know. Though I grew up in a household where there were bulath heppus and spittoons around the place, they were not seen around my house when I got married.

The thought didn't even arise to either me or my wife that these customary items like the 'giray' to cut areca nuts and the little wooden betel pounders should be present in a good Sinhala home.

It was only when a few of my country cousins dropped in that we began to notice the lapse in our hospitality. It seemed as if we had grown up rather shy of this embarrassing habit of chewing betel, which our teachers in school were always telling us to look down upon.

Not sophisticated

In a village home betel is a must. It is present at nearly all the little ceremonies that are held in the home. The ceremonial part of betel chewing is not so elaborate and sophisticated as the Japanese tea ceremony. But it has something in common with the tea ceremony in the importance that both play in their lives.

The story goes that the betel leaf was brought from the Nagaloka as a gift to human beings. The leaf is used for both medicinal and social purposes. In China and Japan also the tealeaf is used for ceremonial and medicinal purposes.

In our humble village homes, and because the serpent that brought the betel leaf held the leaf by its tail end, chewers of betel ceremonially break off the tail end of the leaf when preparing a chew, just in case, perhaps, any trace of the old poison is left behind. (This is also the reason why in offering a bulath hurulla in honour of a person, the tail end of the bulath hurulla is not presented first.)

Chewing betel

The communication that follows is not on spiritual things as it is supposed to be in the Japanese tea ceremony where the sipping of tea is said to rise to the heights of Zen meditation, but on more mundane things like the weather and the quality of the areca nuts tastewise.

My own encounter with a chew has been rather unfortunate. I had been chewing betel occasionally when a teenager with no mishaps, but one day I was left dazed after biting into one.

This happened at home and unlike the cigarettes we were forbidden to smoke, betel chewing by teenagers was not forbidden. I was in agony for some time in my dazed condition and soon home remedies like chewing grains of raw rice were suggested. The culprit in my chewing recipe was discovered to be the use of a variety of areca nut known as mada puvak. The name comes from the practice of storing it under mud in order to preserve it.

As I said earlier the habit of chewing betel was not frowned on. It was an accepted social practice for centuries. After a meal the simple peasant looks forward to a chew just as the English aristocrats, whom we read about in novels, retires to the smoking room to nurse a cognac. Dr P. B. Sannasgala in his book The Cookery Book of the Kandyan Palace has a section on Bulath Kaema (betel chewing).

It was a custom, he says, to chew bulath after a meal - a habit observed by both the clergy and the nobility of the land. This may have been due to the medicinal properties that betel chewing is said to have. To judge from the many references to it in Buddhist writings, Dr Sannasgala says, the custom has prevailed in the country as a Buddhist rite.

Sinhala literary works like the Buthsarana, Sathdharmaalankaraya, Jataka Atuwa Getapadaya carry many references to the chewing of betel. Its added goodness comes from the inclusion of five ingredients - paspala.

All of which were carried around for centuries in a little bag called bulath pahiya, the second word of which has been sadly bowdlerised as we entered the 20th century along with Pahiyagala which the timid now write as Payagala.

John Davy, in his An Account of the Interior of Ceylon, points out that the king had a special Nilame to prepare his 'bulath vita.' Says Davy, "The Paniveda-karuna nilami" had the duty to perform of preparing 'betel' (the bulath vita), and presenting it to the king.

The ingredients of the royal betel, independent of the leaf which gave name to the whole, were the following - the areka-nut, in four different states - dried whole, dried in slices, fresh and macerated in water (mada puvak); chunam or lime, mandandoo, which is a mixture of the buds and roots of an aromatic plant; cardamums; camphor; kypoo, which is an astringent extract resembling catechou; catchundam, a compound of different perfumes; and extract of liquorice.

Instructions

The king never used all these at once but masticated them variously compounded, according to his fancy."

Perchance, suspecting that some day some Western medics were going to raise a doubt on the wisdom of using 'chunam or lime' our vedamhattayas appear to have given instructions on how to use it. "Knowing that you are using chunam, use not more, not less, but just right. You will then have an excellent chew." This quotation I have freely translated is from the Sinhala classic Buthsarana, from which Dr Sannasgala has dug it up for our benefit.

To sense the tempo and the flavour of the betel chewing atmosphere at that time I can do no better than to show it through Davy's eyes: "Though not a convivial, the Sinhalese are a social people, great gossips, and when not occupied seriously, visiting and conversation are their principal amusements.

On such occasions the men and women form their respective circles; they are never seen mixed in society. People of rank who have a great deal of leisure, pass their idle time either in playing cards, which they probably learnt from the Portuguese, or in hearing stories, or in listening to poetry and music.

"Idle ladies amuse themselves with talking, or at a game somewhat resembling backgammon. Chewing betel on such occasions is never omitted by either sex; it is a practice indulged in almost constantly by all classes of people, and it is considered quite indispensable."

Although these leisurely times have now passed away from this glorious earth 'people of rank' and 'idle ladies' in this society today do not sigh for those times nor chew betel anymore. Today's 'idle ladies,' for instance, wouldn't dare to show their lips stained with betel juice. They would rather let Revlon or L'oreal do it for them instead. The reputation of betel chewing has, somehow, not fallen into disgrace in India as it has happened in this country. The reason for that I think is that the Indians are, to their great honour, not ashamed of their identity as the Sri Lankans seem to be.

Stimulates

According to a report in the Herald Tribune, 'paan,' as betel chewing is known in India, keeps drawing crowds despite a red flag displayed by the dentists.

Whatever the pluses and minuses of 'paan' chewing are, there is a rush every night in Mumbai to buy it. Just listen to how this trade plies just under one popular 'paan' seller as reported in the Herald Tribune.

"Some customers come on foot, others on motor cycles. Some order by phone. Others send servants. Many rich families, commonly known as 'the classes' come nightly, stopping factory fresh cars in the traffic and barking orders out the window, 'Two salty ones. Make it quick.'" "This is the area where the classes stay," said Harsh Parekh, a recent college graduate. "They all come for paan".

Right now, I understand, the local sara vita, which got a little publicity some time ago with Joe Abeywickrema in a film by that name singing, 'Siri sara bulath vita kaala balan, podi nangi varen podi malli varen' is facing some competition from imported 'paan.'