The Sri Lanka Reader: History, Culture, Politics (The World Readers) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0822349825 ISBN 13: 9780822349822

Publisher: Duke University Press, 2011

Synopsis

The Sri Lanka Reader is a sweeping introduction to the epic history of the island nation located just off the southern tip of India. The island’s recorded history of more than two and a half millennia encompasses waves of immigration from the South Asian subcontinent, the formation of Sinhala Buddhist and Tamil Hindu civilizations, the arrival of Arab Muslim traders, and European colonization by the Portuguese, then the Dutch, and finally the British. Selected texts depict perceptions of the country’s multiple linguistic and religious communities, as well as its political travails after independence in 1948, especially the ethnic violence that recurred from the 1950s until 2009, when the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam were defeated by the Sri Lankan government’s armed forces. This wide-ranging anthology covers the aboriginal Veddhas, the earliest known inhabitants of the island; the Kings of Kandy, Sri Lanka’s last indigenous dynasty; twenty-first-century women who leave the island to work as housemaids in the Middle East; the forty thousand Sri Lankans killed by the tsunami in December 2004; and, through cutting-edge journalism and heart-wrenching poetry, the protracted violence that has scarred the country’s contemporary political history. Along with fifty-four images of paintings, sculptures, and architecture, The Sri Lanka Reader includes more than ninety classic and contemporary texts written by Sri Lankans and foreigners.

About this title

About the Author

John Clifford Holt is William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of the Humanities in Religion and Asian Studies at Bowdoin College. He has written many books, including Spirits of the Place: Buddhism and Lao Religious Culture, The Buddhist Visnu: Religious Transformation, Politics and Culture, and The Religious World of Kirti Sri: Buddhism, Art and Politics in Late Medieval Sri Lanka. He has also been awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters from the University of Peradeniya in Sri Lanka.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

THE SRI LANKA READER

HISTORY, CULTURE, POLITICS

DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 2011 Duke University Press
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8223-4982-2

Contents

List of Illustrations.................................................xiiiAcknowledgments.......................................................xvIntroduction..........................................................1I From Ancient to Early Modern........................................9II The Colonial Encounter.............................................133III Emerging Identities...............................................331IV Independence, Insurrections, and Social Change.....................589V Political Epilogue..................................................713Acknowledgment of Copyrights and Sources..............................735Suggestions for Further Reading.......................................745Index.................................................................751

Chapter One

From Ancient to Early Modern

Sri Lanka is an ancient land by any comparative standard. Drip ledge caves, with hewn or carved inscriptions written in the archaic Brahmi script and located in what is now the country's North Central Province, indicate that by the third century BCE Buddhist laymen believed that they were earning merit for a better rebirth by providing Buddhist monks with a refuge to pursue their monastic vocations. Theravada Buddhist monastic chronicles assert that by about this time, royal power, with its chief seat in Anuradhapura —a settlement that was to become eventually a great cosmopolitan city supported by a system of sophisticated irrigation works—converted to Buddhism as a result of missionary efforts led by children of the great Indian emperor Asoka. These remarkable texts, the Dipavamsa (Chronicle of the Island) and earlier sections of the Mahavamsa (Great Chronicle), were written in the classical Prakrit language of Pali, purportedly by monastic incumbents of the Mahavihara fraternity of the Theravada school of Buddhism during the fourth and fifth centuries CE, when Anuradhapura was in full cultural bloom. Aside from archaeological information now coming to light, these texts, while largely sectarian in perspective, still remain our earliest interpretive windows into Sri Lanka's distant past.

Anuradhapura was the ritual and administrative center of the island's chief kings from the third century BCE until the destruction of its infrastructure by imperial Cola invaders from Thanjavur, south India, in the early eleventh century CE. For thirteen centuries, the city's society and culture flourished, supported by a robust economy made possible by the control and distribution of water. The most outstanding feature of Anuradhapura society was the symbiotic relationship between royalty and monastery. At the time of their construction by the Anuradhapura kings in the early centuries of the first millennium, the massive Ruvanvelisaya, Abhyagiriya, and Jetavana stupas (reliquary mounds) built within the city's Buddhist monastic complexes were the largest man-made structures in the world after the pyramids of Egypt. By means of generous royal support and the ethic of gift giving or merit making by the laity, the Buddhist monastic sangha thrived. The Chinese pilgrim Fa-Hien (whose writings are excerpted in this Reader) mentions some five thousand monks in residence at the Abhyagiriya monastery and three thousand in the Mahavihara monastery alone. Each of the three major monasteries developed extensive administrative systems that served as the central bureaucracies for the many far-flung village temples that constituted their nikayas (chapters or sects). In effect, the sangha became the central source of literary and artistic culture and, in many ways, the economic arbiter of capital wealth. In the later centuries of the first millennium, Anuradhapura continued to be a cosmopolitan city. For many Sri Lankan Buddhists the city represents the pristine purity of a Sinhala Theravada Buddhist past, but in fact the monasteries of Anuradhapura (especially the Abhyagiriya and Jetavana) were quite eclectic in nature. Inscriptions and sculptures reveal that the Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhist traditions were also well represented. Indeed, twentieth-century archeological finds indicate that the Mahayana cult of Avalokitesvara was widespread throughout the island from the eighth through at least the tenth centuries.

The Mahavamsa contains an account of the political gyrations that eventually led to the invasion by the Cola empire based in Thanjavur (modern Tamilnadu), which seems to have resulted in the almost total demolition of Anuradhapura's civic and monastic infrastructure in the eleventh century. The Colas established their new power base on the island in Polonnaruva, about 80 miles to the southeast of Anuradhapura, ostensibly to better fend off any counterattacks from the Sinhalese, whose royalty had fled to the southeast quadrant of the island. The Colas maintained their position for many decades into the eleventh century, before the Sinhalas captured Polonnaruva and turned it into their own capital. The Culavamsa (the extension of the Mahavamsa) extols the great irrigation works (Parakramabahu samudra) and building achievements (especially the monastic complex Alahena Pirivena, said to have been attended by some ten thousand monks) of Parakramabahu I and other kings, including Nissamka Mala. When the bhikkhusangha was reconstituted in Polonnaruva, only Theravada monks (and none from the Mahayana tradition) were ordained and supported; no bhikkunnishangha (order of nuns) was reestablished at that time. This composition of monastic Buddhism is still in place today.

It is clear from archeological and sculptural remains that the Polonnaruva capital also sustained a Hindu Saivite presence after its capture by the Sinhalese. Even the Culavamsa account contains numerous references to Saivite practices in the royal court, probably owing to the fact that Sinhala Polonnaruva kings revived the practice of marrying queens from south India. It is possible that the later blending of Hindu and Buddhist popular religion received its impetus from the social and political realities of the Polon naruva courts at this time. But Polonnaruva was also the venue for the writing of the first Sinhala literary compositions, especially those by the celebrated writer Garulugomi, which took Buddhist subjects for their substance.

Polonnaruva was sacked by Magha, an invader from Kalinga (modern western Orissa) in the thirteenth century, a disaster so thorough in nature that the Sinhala kings abandoned their splendid capital and began to retreat in a southwesterly direction situating themselves in a series of backwater capitals. The invasion was followed by another several decades later, this one led by Chandrabhanu of Sri Vijaya (modern Malaysia and Sumatra) who purportedly sought possession of the Buddha's tooth relic and thereby the right to rule over Lanka. Indeed, the entire thirteenth through fifteenth centuries marks a period of great social turbulence and political instability throughout the island and with it, the increasing political enervation of Sinhala kings. At the same time, this was a period of unprecedented migration of peoples from various regions of south India, many of whom were originally mercenaries enlisted to fight in the ongoing conflicts. Their presence further abetted a Lankan cultural fermentation, the increased mixing of Hindu and Buddhist elements seen, for example, in the architecture and ritual practices of the Gadaladeniya and Lankatilaka temple complexes constructed during the Gampola (near Kandy) period of the fourteenth century. Also at this time, a powerful merchant family, the Alakesvaras, originally from Kerala, supervised the rule of the weakened Sinhala kings of the upcountry from their own power base in Kotte (near modern Colombo). In the fourteenth century, an independent Tamil kingdom was established in Jaffna, ruled over by a king of the Aryacakravarti dynasty, in effect creating three competing political power centers. In the early fifteenth century, a coup orchestrated by the great Chinese admiral of the Ming dynasty, Cheng Ho, installed Parakramabahu VI on the Sinhala throne at Kotte; his long reign, beginning in 1412 and lasting fifty-five years, united the island under one rule for a twenty-year period—the only such time of unification between the Polonnaruva era and the disestablishment of Kandyan kingship by the British in 1815. The Kotte period under the rule of Parakramabahu VI was especially rich in the production of new genres of literature and the increasing influence of Hindu culture.

Buddhist Visions of a Primordial Past

Anonymous, comp. Mahanama Thera

Sri Lanka's renown in the Asian Buddhist world, especially in Southeast Asia, derives from the fact that it was here that the Theravada Buddhist tradition, one of the two main forms of the Buddhist religion in Asia, developed and thrived, from the third century BCE forward. In the eleventh century CE, the Sinhala Theravada lineage spread from Sri Lanka to Burma, and then from Burma to Buddhist kingdoms in northern Thailand (first to Chiang Mai's Lan Na Thai, then to Sukhothai, and finally to Ayutthaya); from there, over the three following centuries, it spread to Cambodia's Angkor, and Laos's Lang Xang in Luang Phrabang. Sri Lanka has been regarded as the motherlode of Buddhism for these Southeast Asian religious cultures ever since.

While it is relatively certain that the Buddha lived and taught in the fifth and sixth centuries BCE in India's Ganges River Valley, and probably never left this region of northeast India during his lifetime, each of these Buddhist countries associates visits by the Buddha with the establishment of their higher civilizations. Here is the account of the Buddha's first visit to the island of Lanka as it is preserved in the fifth-century CE Theravada Buddhist monastic chronicle, the Mahavamsa, compiled in Lanka's great capital city of Anuradhapura by the Theravada monk Mahanama Thera; it was written in Pali, the literary language of the Theravada tradition's sacred texts.

The Visit of the Tathagata (The One "Thus-Gone")

Having made obeisance to the Sambuddha the pure ..., I will recite the Mahavamsa, of varied content and lacking nothing. That [previous] (Mahavamsa) which was compiled by the ancient (sages) was here too long drawn out and there too closely knit; and contained many repetitions. Attend now to this [Mahavamsa] that is free from such faults, easy to understand and remember, arousing serene joy and emotion and handed down (to us) by tradition....

On seeing the Sambuddha Dipamkara, in olden times, our Conqueror resolved to become a Buddha, that he might release the world from evil [dukkha, suffering]. When he offered homage to that Sambuddha and [to the remainder of the] ... twenty-four Sambuddhas and having received from them the prophecy of his (future) buddhahood he, the great hero, when he had fulfilled all perfections and reached the highest enlightenment ..., delivered the world from suffering.

At Uruvela, in the Magadha country, the great sage, sitting at the foot of the Bodhi tree, reached the supreme enlightenment on the full-moon day of the month Vesakha. Seven weeks he tarried there, mastering his senses, ... [and] knew the high bliss of deliverance and ... its felicity. Then he went to Baranasi and set rolling the wheel of the law; and while he dwelt there through the rain-months, he brought sixty (hearers) to arahantship [enlightenment]. When he had sent forth these bhikkhus [monks] to preach the dhamma [truth], and when he had converted the thirty companions of the company of Bhadda then did the Master dwell [in] Uruvela the winter through, for the sake of converting the thousand jatilas [ascetics] led by Kassapa, making them ripe (for deliverance).

Now since a great sacrifice by Kassapa of Uruvela was near at hand ..., he ... went to seek alms among the Northern Kurus; and when he had eaten his meal at evening time near the lake Anotatta, the Conqueror, in the ninth month of his buddhahood ... set forth for the isle of Lanka, to win Lanka for the sasana [religious tradition]. For Lanka was known to the Conqueror as a place where his dhamma should (thereafter) shine in glory; and (he knew that) from Lanka, filled with the yakkhas [demons], the yakkhas must (first) be driven forth.

And he knew also that in the midst of Lanka, on the fair riverbank, in the delightful Mahanaga garden ... , the (customary) meeting-place for the yakkhas, there was a great gathering of (all) the yakkhas dwelling in the island. To this great gathering of the yakkhas went the Blessed One, and there, in the midst of that assembly, hovering in the air over their heads, at the place of the (future) Mahiyangana-thupa [reliquary], he struck terror to their hearts by rain, storm, darkness and so forth. The yakkhas, overwhelmed by fear, besought the fearless Vanquisher to release them from terrors, and the Vanquisher, destroyer of fear, spoke thus to the terrified yakkhas: "I will banish this your fear and your distress, O yakkhas, give ... me ... a place where I may sit down." The yakkhas answered, "We all, O Lord, give you even the whole of our island. Give us release from our fear." Then, when he had destroyed their terror, cold, and darkness, and had spread his rug of skin on the ground that they bestowed on him, the Conqueror, sitting there, made the rug to spread wide, while burning flame surrounded it. Daunted by the burning heat thereof and terrified, they stood around on the border. Then did the [Buddha] cause the pleasant Giridipa [island] to come here near to them, and when they had settled there, he made it return to its former place. Then did the [Buddha] fold his rug of skin; the devas [gods] assembled, and in their assembly, the Master preached them the dhamma. The conversion of many ... took place, and countless were those who came ... [to hold] the (three) refuges [Buddha, dhamma, and sangha] and the [ethical] precepts of duty.

The prince of [the] devas, Mahasumana of the Sumanakuta mountain [Sri Pada, or Adam's Peak], who had attained to the fruit of entering into the path of [dhamma], craved ... something to worship. The Conqueror, the (giver of) good to living beings, he who had pure and blue-black locks ... bestowed on him a handful of hairs. And he [Saman deva], receiving this in a splendid golden urn, when he had laid the hairs upon a heap of many colored gems, seven cubits round, piled up at the place where the Master had sat, covered them over with a thupa [reliquary] of sapphire and worshipped them.

When the Sambuddha had died, the thera [elder] named Sarabhu, disciple of the thera Sariputta, by his miraculous power received, even from the funeral pyre, the collar bone of the Conqueror and brought it ... (to Lanka), and, with the bhikkhus all around him, he there laid it in that same cetiya [reliquary], covered it over with the golden colored stones, and (then he), the worker of miracles, having made the thupa twelve cubits high, departed again.... The son of king Devanampiyatissa's brother, named Uddhaculabhaya, saw the wondrous cetiya and (again) covered it over and made it thirty cubits high. The king Dutthagamani, dwelling there while he made war upon the Damilas, built a mantle cetiya over it eighty cubits high. Thus was the Mahiyangana thupa completed. When he had thus made our island a fit dwelling place for men, the mighty ruler, valiant as are great heroes, departed for Uruvela.

What immediately follows in the Mahavamsa are detailed accounts of two more visits to Lanka by the Buddha: the first to the island of Nagadipa (modern-day Nainativu to the west of Jaffna), in which he settles a dispute between two Naga kings who are fighting over a gem throne; and the second, to Kelaniya (just north of modern Colombo), where he is feasted and preaches the dhamma. From Kelaniya, the Buddha proceeds to Sumanakuta (Sri Pada, or Adam's Peak), where he leaves his footprint; he goes on to hallow five more sacred places, including the future locales of Sri Mahabodhi and several stupas in Anuradhapura.

The Mahavamsa's account of the civilizing of the island, however, was not complete without an explanation of the coming of kingship. Thus, another cycle of stories in early portions of the Mahavamsa recounts the origins of Sri Lankan kingship, and, in the minds of many, the origins of the Sinhala people as well, since these stories refer to the establishment of a line of political rule that remained unbroken, if at times severely challenged, until the British disestablished the last of the Kandyan kings in 1815. Vijaya, the protagonist of the mythic quest articulated below, is the legendary progenitor of the Sinhala people.

The Coming of Vijaya

In the country of the Vangas ... there lived once a king.... The daughter of the king of the Kalingas was that king's consort. By his spouse the king had a daughter; the soothsayers prophesied her union with the king of beasts. Very fair was she and very amorous and for shame the king and queen could not suffer her.

Alone she went forth from the house, desiring the joy of independent life; unrecognized she joined a caravan traveling to the Magadha country. In the Lala country a lion attacked the caravan in the forest, the other folk fled this way and that, but she fled along the way by which the lion had come.

When the lion had taken his prey and was leaving the spot he beheld her from afar, love (for her) laid hold on him, and he came towards her with waving tail and ears laid back. Seeing him she bethought of that prophecy of the soothsayers which she had heard, and without fear she caressed him stroking his limbs.

The lion, roused to the fiercest passion by her touch, took her upon his back and bore her with all speed to his cave, and there he was united with her, and from this union with him the princess in time bore twin children, a son and a daughter.

The son's hands and feet were formed like a lion's and therefore she named him Sihabahu, but the daughter (she named) Sihasivali. When he was sixteen years old the son questioned his mother on the doubt (that had arisen in him): "Why are you and our father so different, dear mother?" She told him all. Then he asked: "Why do we not go forth (from here)?" And she answered: "Your father has closed the cave up with a rock." Then he took that barrier before the great cave upon his shoulder and went (a distance of) fifty yojanas going and coming in one day.

Then (once), when the lion had gone forth in search of prey, (Sihabahu) took his mother on his right shoulder and his young sister on his left, and went away with great speed. They clothed themselves with branches of trees, and so came to a border village and there, even at that time, was a son of the princess's uncle, a commander in the army of the Vanga king, to whom was given the rule over the border country; and he was just then sitting under a banyan tree overseeing the work that was done.

When he saw them he asked them (who they were) and they said: "We are forest folk"; the commander bade (his people) give them clothing; and this turned into splendid (garments). He had food offered to them on leaves and by reason of their merit these were turned into dishes of gold. Then, amazed, the commander asked them, "Who are you?" The princess told him her family and clan. Then the commander took his uncle's daughter with him and went to the capital of the Vangas and married her.

When the lion, returning in haste to his cave, missed those three (persons), he was sorrowful, and grieving after his son he neither ate nor drank. Seeking for his children he went to the border village and every village where he came was deserted by the dwellers therein.

And the border folk came to the king and told him this: "A lion ravages thy country; ward off (this danger) O king!"

(Continues...)

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Edition details

• Publisher: Duke University Press
• Publication date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0822349825
• ISBN 13: 9780822349822
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 792
• Editor: Holt John Clifford