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| Sunday, 15 February 2004 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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The crowning glory Saranankara reprinted to Commemorate 250 years of Upasampada On the world map, our island seems to hang rather precariously at the tip of the massive sub-continent of Bharatha Desha. But never had it dropped off due to any geological cataclysm nor got swamped by many a catastrophe that came its way. Even was it to be on the verge of such a calamity a great son would emerge from some nook in the island to retrieve it in time. This time the saviour emerged from a Kulatunga family in distant Tumpane. Kulatunga Mudali was a person of note himself, being the Mudaliyar of Tumpane and Wellassa in the eve of the 17th century and dawn of the 18th century. Centuries later, many eulogies have been written on his son not because he was a Mudaliyar's son but because he was the pilot of the great religious and cultural renaissance in 18th century Lanka. Some even dub his son, later elevated to the post of Sangharaja of the island "the second Mahinda Thera." Such was the momentum of his work. Out of the many works woven around the Sangharaja, stands out Sir D. B. Jayatilaka's work. The evolution of this book is in itself interesting and substantiates the saying that it needs a great human to recognize the greatness of another human. D. B. Jayatilaka's fame as a writer and educationalist has more or less been shadowed by his role as a politician who soared to that of a great leader of the day. Many are not aware that he headed Dharmaraja College of Kandy and later Ananda College, Colombo going on to become the President of the Buddhist Theosophical Society and the YMBA. Parallel with all this he wrote a number of books and made many contributions to learned journals of the day. According to the prefatory note written to the first print of this work, it was a biographical sketch written on the prelate in 1902 to the 'Buddhist' Vol. XII that had been issued in 1934 in book form. Visidunu Publishers thought it fit to bring out a second print in 2003. Why? Because this year commemorates 250 years of the bringing of 'Upasampada' that was the crowning glory of the Sangharaja's gamut of work in salvaging Buddhism and its aligned culture from the morass it had plummeted into. That the author had got acutely sensitive to the non-sensitivity of the times he lives in to this great mentor is testified by these opening sentences in his book - "Modern history of Ceylon has no name worthy of honour and grateful remembrance than the one which forms the title of this sketch. But strange to say, even to the Sinhalese Buddhists the name Saranankara Sangharaja presents an indistinct figure as if he belonged to the regions of antiquity...' Much research has gone into writing this book replete with chapters on the Sangharaja's birth and education, his first reforming efforts, the first embassy to Siam, the second and third embassies to Siam, hi life and times, and his end with an appendix on the Leuke family. How the Leukes come into the picture in itself is interesting. The knowledge of Pali, the vehicle language of Buddhism had gone into abeyance this time and only Leuke Ralahami, a scholar of the times knew it. But Leuke himself at this time had been a State prisoner at Makehelwala off Kadugannawa. In order to unearth the Dhamma treasures that lay buried in the Pali texts, Saranankara stealthily made contact with him to learn Pali risking his own life. Many are aware of the Sangharaja's great effort at combing the country for books of yore that were just languishing in the hands of those who did not realize their value. The lamp he lit radiated its glow mainly to the South to be taken up later by great prelates like Hikkaduwe Sri Sumangala. Thus actually Sir D. B. Jayatilaka's book is a book told of the 18th century saviour of Buddhism and aligned culture and aligned literature. The contents are almost out of proportion to its modest size. Dr. Andreas Nell has supplied the illustrations of ancient vintage that include photographs of the old Ridi Vihara of Hath Korale that was the prelate's headquarters and also photographs of the gifts and Watapatha presented to him by the king and a grateful people. The book comes in hardback cover and the new edition carries a list of Sir D. B. Jayatilaka's works taken from a source compiled by Dr. Nandadeva Wijesekara. ********************* Learning without teacher assistance Teach yourself Tamil - a complete course for beginners What is the easiest way to learn a foreign language? One of the quickest and easiest ways of acquiring a new language is probably by constantly mixing with native speakers. But not everybody gets this opportunity. So, instead, today language learners are forced to attend special classes or hire private tutors to learn a foreign language. Consequently, they are largely dependent on the skills of such teachers for their ability to master the language correctly. The other alternative is to learn the new language without a teacher's assitance, by using a 'Teach yourself' book. The latter option for students wanting to learn the Tamil language is now being offered by writer A.W.L. Silva a well-known linguist who has already left his mark on language learners in this country with his comprehensive and enlightening course for learning the Sinhala language. "Teach yourself Tamil" which claims to be a, "complete course for beginners to help students and scholars who aspire to learn the basics of the Tamil language as a foreign language". However concedes that, "one cannot learn a language thoroughly in a very short time and has to continue using it to update its knowledge for ever". The author in his preface, however expresses his confidence that the Tamil language, can be learnt easily by any student of a foreign langauge due to the fact that it shares similarities and affinities with other dravidian languages. "To any student of a foreign language the sound system and word sound pattern of his foreign language may appear strange. However an average student will easily master the sounds of the Tamil language with no noteworthy difficulty", he says. His book sets out to justify this claim by its unusual approach. The author has carefully structured his lessons (30 in all) beginning with the phenetic alphabet and the Tamil alphabet in the first lesson. In all the following lessons each Tamil word is written in the Tamil script and its pronunciation is given in the phonetic script. In the second chapter which deals with Spoken language rules, the author has thoughtfully provided a sketch illustrating the exact tongue position for both Tamil and English words for the benefit of the learner, while explaining the phonetic symbols used to represent the vowel and consonant sounds. The rest of the book deals with declension of nouns, pronouns, Tamil verbs and conjugations of verbs and nouns. It also includes a chapter on Cardinal numbers and Ordinary numbers in Tamil, expressions of Time, Days of the week, months, seasons, expressions of feelings and emotions, greetings, and separate chapters on adjectives, adverbs, transitive and intransitive verbs, masculine and feminine nouns and prepositions. Apart from these grammatical sentences, the book also includes colloquial utterances and direct translations of spoken English e.g. "I will come and go", "Rain is coming, come inside". "Enough, I want to go", "Drink medicine as soon as you reach home". These carefully graded and structured lessons and the specially designed phonetic script to clearly indicate correct pronunciation of each individual Tamil word, are the most salient features of this well got together language book. The built-in revision material strategically placed in each of the lessons allows for practical work, interaction and continuous self assessment by the student and are undoubtedly most effective. The concluding chapter provides for practical activity and self assessment in which students are tested on their mastery of the vocabulary with exercises that are mostly translations of short sentences from English to Tamil. Language acquisition is by no means easy for the adult learner of a second language. But is most rewarding to the student who persists. This book which is by far one of the most comprehensive and far thinking language learning books in the Tamil language is a welcome addition to the limited number of Teach yourself books on the two most important local dialects in this country. The author, a teacher by profession, is to be commended for his excellent effort. This writer recommends it without reserve to all students of the Tamil language. ********************* Sri Lanka Media Guide A professional media guide for Sri Lanka, containing names and addresses of about 500 media outlets throughout the country, was published in January, 2004 by the Sri Lanka Environmental Journalists Forum (SLEJF). The SLEJF guide also lists the addresses of many government and political spokespeople, media organisations, and news outlets. As the foremost media NGO engaged in the field of environmental journalism, ethnic and peace reporting SLEJF has been providing guidance to many men and women in journalism for well over a decade. Media persons of various levels and categories from free-lance journalists, provincial correspondents of many media organisations, writers working for environmental magazines and newsletters have been the beneficiaries of the media guide for Sri Lanka-Year 2004 edition. This directory consisting of 288 pages contains information on art galleries, cultural bodies, development agencies, foreign missions press attaches, government media organizations foreign media agencies, national journalists organizations, newspapers, political parties, Sri Lanka Foreign Ministry press attaches abroad, and Radio and TV stations and broadcasting companies. ********************* Murder at the Website and Other Stories This book written by G. T. Francis de Silva, (a Professor in Mathematics and Computer studies and a former Vice Chancellor of the University of Moratuwa), translated "Murder at the Website and Other Stories" (untharjalaye abhirahas minimaruma saha wenath katha) to Sinhala by Sugath Wijesinghe, has been published by Godage and Sons. The book targets youth and school children and provides an introduction to the use of logical thinking and of information technology. Only basic features such as the use of Internet, computer graphics, and e-mail are dealt with. It includes some reference to concepts such as decision-making, problem solving, etc. and occasional humorous episodes. The picture shows the publisher Deshabandu S. Godage handing over the first copy to Prof. Francis de Silva. ********************* Valuable contribution Understanding and Analysis of Insurance Accounts Understanding and Analysis of Insurance Accounts is an invaluable contribution that fills an important void in insurance literature. Its advent has been timely as recent events such as the failures of several internationally known insurers and reinsurers, the impact of natural and man made disasters have eroded confidence in insurers and caused upheavals in the international insurance markets. The effects of these inevitably filter down to markets such as Sri Lanka's in the form of higher reinsurance costs and reduced reinsurance capacity. Hydery A. Rehmanjee is a leading professional in the insurance field, with over four decades of wide and varied experience, in Sri Lanka and abroad including many years as a CEO. In this book he draws from his wealth of knowledge to guide and where necessary caution readers as he takes them through the intricacies of analysing insurance accounts after appropriately preparing the reader for this exercise. This work is indeed an indispensable and rewarding walk, through a hitherto almost untraversed path and could potentially save stakeholders in an insurance company who read this book from the dire consequences of an insurers' insolvency. The book though titled 'Understanding and Analysis of Insurance Accounts' is much wider in scope, than its title implies because it also gives the reader an understanding of insurance and reinsurance which is sine qua non for the proper understanding and evaluation of insurance accounts. It is a rare though necessary departure from other books that deal exclusively with the preparation of insurance accounts. Insurance operations and its accounting aspects are inextricably interwoven and a complete picture emerges only if they are considered in relation to each other. M. S. Wijenaike ********************* 'Sonduru Piya Gunaya' 'Sonduru Piya Gunaya' is a book in Sinhala written by Ven. Uduwe Dhammaloka Thera in prose and verse deriving from the discourse of the Dhamma. It is a small book written in simple form and in an attractive manner. The Buddhist concept of the nobleness and the amiability of the father is explained in this book with examples. This book has been printed as a meritorious deed to mark the 2nd commemorational religious ceremony of the founder of Borella Pharmacy, pharmacist Piyasena Weerawardana. This book has been published by the members of the Weerawardana family and the first copies were offered to the Ven. author by Ms. Disna Weerawardana Abayasundara at a ceremonial launch held on January 26. |
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