|
|
|
  |
| Sunday, 20 February 2005 |
 |
|
 |
Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
|
Ven. Siddhartha Thera : Giant of Buddhist education by Sumana Saparamadu February 13 was the 137th birth anniversary of D. B. Jayatilaka, scholar, statesman and undisputed leader of Buddhists in 20th century Sri Lanka. His memory is kept alive by the annual Sir Baron Jayatilaka Memorial Lecture organised by the Colombo YMBA, the Association of which he was President from its inauguration in 1898 upto his death in 1944. On the same day that Jayatilaka was born (1868. Feb. 13) in the village of Waragoda in Kelaniya, another Buddhist scholar and the pioneer of pirivena education in the Colonial Era, passed away at his pirivena in Ratmalana. Few remember him and it is very rarely that his name ven. Walane Sri Siddhartha Thera is mentioned in the media. He has been omitted even in Poojita Jeevitha (Lives of Great Men) published when W. J. M. Lokubandara was Minister of Education. The only account of his life and work I could find was in the Dinamina Wesak Kalapaya of 1974. Don Phillip de Silva Epa Appuhamy is said to have written his life story in verse captioned 'Sidath Watha' and James D' Alwis has also written his biography, none of which is available for reference now. If more recent accounts of the thera's life and work has appeared in print I have not laid my hands on them. Ven. Walane Sri Siddhartha Thera, was a colossus, both literally and metaphorically. He was 6 foot 4. He pioneered the Buddhist revival in the last quarter of the 19th century. Sri Siddhartha thera was born in Walana, in Panadura in 1811, four years before the Sinhala Kingdom was ceded to Great Britain, and 15 years after the British flag was hoisted for the first time on the wall of the Colombo Fort, on February 16, 1796. Chaotic Till he was eight-years-old he had no formal education. Three centuries of foreign rule and missionary activity, had destroyed the village temple which had been the village school in that system of education. Due to the chaotic conditions in the country the Buddhist monks had fled to the hill-country where the old system of education prevailed. The little boy always accompanied his grandmother to a little hillock in Walana, where she offered flowers and lit lamps at the foot of a Na tree. The Na tree has been singled out for veneration from ancient times. The boy would sweep and clean the area around the tree while his grandmother prepared the flowers and lamps for offering. He also made friends with a bhikkhu who lived in an 'aavasa' - a thatched mud hut closeby. Impressed by the boy's conduct and manner of speech he suggested to the old lady, that the boy be ordained. With the consent of the parents the boy was ordained by this bhikkhu, Giddawa Gunarathana, and given the name Siddhartha. He was 13 years old then. There were no temples on the western slope where the young samanera could study the Dhamma and Vinaya and learn the languages in which they were written, but there were a few seats of learning in the former Kandyan Kingdom. Among them was the Vihara (now known as 'Purana Vihara) in Pelmadulla, where bhikkhu Gunarathana took Samanera Siddhartha and introduced him to Sumangala Medhalankara Thera, of Galle. Under his tutelage samanera Siddhartha learned Sinhala and Pali and all that a novice should know of the Dhamma and Vinaya before receiving the upasampada-higher ordination. In 1832 when he was 20 plus he received the upasampada at the Malwatta Vihara in Kandy. He continued to study at the Pelmadulla Vihara. During that period he had the opportunity to meet George Turnor, G. A. Ratnapura who came to Pelmadulla Vihara to study Sinhala and Pali and Bhikkhu Siddhartha learned English from him. Returning to the little temple in Walana, he started teaching a few samaneras and also began to look for a suitable place to start a proper 'pirivena', a school for bhikkhus, perhaps like the one at Pelmadulla. One of his dayakas - lay supporters - Don Jeronimus Seneviratna, a Registrar of births and deaths, accompanied Siddhartha Thera to a number of places none of which appealed to him, until he went to a vast cinnamon plantation in Ratmalana. Ven. Siddhartha Thera was inspired by the solitude of the place, and the Registrar bought a block of land paying its owner Dona Helena Hamine, 200 pathage (a Portuguese coin) or 15 pounds and offered it to the thera. Building a wattle and daub hut Registrar Seneviratna invited the thera to spend the Vas (the rain retreat) there. That was in the year 1841. This mud hut was the nucleus of the Parama Dhamma Cetiya Pirivena, which later became the centre for Buddhist studies in Colonial Ceylon. Among the first students of this new school, were Ven. Hikkaduwe Sri Sumangala Thera, Ven. Ratmalane Dharmaloka Thera and Ven. Batuwantudawe Devarakshita Thera, who returned to lay life but continued his scholarship and writing and was known as Pandit Batuwantudawe. The two Pirivenas Vidyodaya at Maligakanda and Vidyalankara at Peliyagoda were set up. Ven. Hikkaduwe Sri Sumangala Thera and Ven. Ratmalane Dharmaloka Thera, became the model for future pirivenas started by bhikkhus who passed out from these two pirivenas. There was another school of the Parama Dhamma Cetiya Pirivena - Ven. Ratmalane Dhammarama Thera, who succeeded Ven. Dharmaloka Thera at Vidyalankara. In the early days the vihara in Ratmalana had no dagoba or Bodhi tree. The resident bhikkhus and the devotees offered flowers at a mallasana - altar for flowers placed in front of the pothgula the library of ola books, the dhamma books. The offerings were made to the Parama Dhamma, the Supreme Teaching of the Buddha. Hence the name of the vihara - Parama Dhamma Cetiya. Colony The school that started with 17 students, soon had more than 100 monks and laymen. More space and buildings were required. In 1846, the main dayakas, Don Jeronimus Seneviratna, Don Philip de Silva Epa Appuhamy and Kompannage Bastian Fonseka bought four more blocks of land for 870 pathaaga (64 pounds 17 shillings) and offered them to Siddhartha Thera. Rupees and cents came into use in the Colony only in January 1872. A shrine room and 20 rooms round a courtyard were constructed by Ven. Siddhartha Thera and they were there when Ven. Pimbure Soratha Thera, a lecturer at the pirivena contributed his article to the Dinamina Vesak Kalapaya in 1974. The first Dharma Sangayana - council of monks - in the Colonial era was held at the Pelmadulla Purana Vihara in the late 1860s, presided over by Ven. Walane Sri Siddhartha Thera. (A moot point - was Sri added later when the thera grew in stature or was it part of the name given when Ven. Giddawa Gunaratna Thera ordained him?). The chief sponsor of this Sangayana was Iddamalgoda RM, the Basnayaka Nilame of the Maha Saman Devala, Ratnapura, and the purpose of the council was to revise the Pali texts expurgating discrepancies and errors in spelling etc unwittingly made by the scribes. Erudite bhikkhus of both the Siam and Amarapura Nikayas participated in this council. While going through the final revision of the Vinaya Pitaka, Sri Siddhartha thera took ill and returned to Ratmalana. There his condition took a turn for the worse and he passed away in the early hours of February 13 1868. In te following day the Lak Rivi Kirana published his life-story in verse. |
|
| News | Business | Features
| Editorial | Security
| Produced by Lake House |
