Every year on the full moon of Poson, usually in June, hundreds of thousands of people climb the stone steps of Mihintale, a rocky hill a short distance east of Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka. They come to remember the day, more than two thousand years ago, when the monk Mahinda met the king of the island and introduced him to the Buddha’s teaching. For Sri Lankan Buddhists, this is the moment when the Dhamma came home.
The son of an emperor
Mahinda was a son of Emperor Asoka, the Mauryan ruler who governed much of the Indian subcontinent in the third century BCE. After a bloody war in Kalinga, Asoka turned towards the Dhamma and became a great patron of the Buddhist community. According to the Sri Lankan chronicles, the Dīpavaṃsa and Mahāvaṃsa, both Mahinda and his sister Sanghamittā were ordained with their father’s blessing.
The chronicles relate that after a council of monks held at Pāṭaliputta under the elder Moggaliputta Tissa, missionaries were sent to many lands. Mahinda, by then an arahant, was chosen to go to Laṅkā (Sri Lanka). He travelled with four other monks, a novice named Sumana, and a lay disciple named Bhaṇḍuka.
Arrival at Mihintale
According to the Mahāvaṃsa, the group arrived on the full moon of the month of Jeṭṭha — the month now called Poson — and alighted on the hill then known as Missaka, today’s Mihintale. The date is traditionally placed in the third century BCE, around 250 BCE, though exact dates in the chronicles should be treated with care.
That same day, King Devānampiya Tissa of Anuradhapura was out hunting. As the story goes, he was chasing a deer up the hill when he heard his name called and saw the calm figure of the monk. Mahinda reassured him: “We are ascetics, great king, disciples of the King of Dhamma. Out of compassion for you we have come here from Jambudīpa.” The king, who had already exchanged friendly gifts and messages with Asoka, laid down his bow.
The riddle of the mango tree
Before teaching, Mahinda wanted to know whether the king could understand the Dhamma. He pointed to a nearby tree and began a series of questions, which the Mahāvaṃsa records roughly like this:
- “What is this tree called, O king?” — “It is a mango tree.”
- “Are there other mango trees besides this one?” — “There are many.”
- “Are there other trees besides this mango and the other mangoes?” — “There are many, venerable sir, but they are not mango trees.”
- “And besides the other mangoes and the trees that are not mangoes, is there yet another tree?” — “There is this mango tree, venerable sir.”
Mahinda then asked a similar series about the king’s relatives and non-relatives, and the king answered: “Besides my relatives and those who are not, there is myself.” Seeing the king’s clear and quick mind, Mahinda knew he was ready to hear the teaching. Pilgrims today visit the Ambasthala (“mango-tree place”) stūpa, which marks the traditional site of this meeting.
The Elephant’s Footprint sermon
Mahinda then taught the Cūḷahatthipadopama Sutta, “The Shorter Discourse on the Simile of the Elephant’s Footprint” (MN 27). In this discourse the Buddha explains that a wise woodsman does not conclude he has found a great bull elephant merely from large footprints; he follows the tracks until he sees the elephant itself. In the same way, a disciple gains confidence in the Buddha step by step — through hearing the teaching, keeping virtue, practising meditation — until he or she sees the truth directly.
It was a fitting choice for a king who had just been hunting in the forest. The Mahāvaṃsa says that at the end of the sermon the king and forty thousand of his followers went for refuge to the Three Jewels.
Planting the Sāsana
In the days that followed, Mahinda was invited to Anuradhapura, where he taught the people and the royal household. The king offered the Mahāmeghavana park to the Saṅgha, and the Mahāvihāra monastery was established there — for many centuries the centre of Theravāda learning. According to tradition, Mahinda also brought the commentaries on the scriptures, which were preserved in the Sinhala language, and when Queen Anulā wished to be ordained, his sister Sanghamittā was invited from India.
The chronicles say Mahinda spent the rest of his life in Sri Lanka and passed away there at the age of sixty. He is remembered with deep affection as the island’s spiritual father.
Poson today
Poson Poya is, after Vesak, one of the most important festivals in Sri Lanka. Mihintale and Anuradhapura are filled with white-clad pilgrims. Many people observe the eight precepts, listen to sermons and meditate. All along the roads, families and villages set up dansal — free stalls offering food and drink to every passer-by — and towns are decorated with lanterns and illuminated pandals showing scenes from Buddhist stories.
What we can learn
Mahinda did not arrive with force or demands. He came with compassion, began a conversation, and made sure his listener was ready before he taught. The Elephant’s Footprint sermon reminds us that faith in the Buddhist path is meant to grow through experience, step by step, not through blind belief. And the gift Mahinda left — a living tradition that has lasted more than two thousand years — shows how much good one patient, kind teacher can do.
Reflection: on the next Poson, take a few minutes to read MN 27. Where in your own practice have you “seen the footprints”, and what would it mean to follow them further?
