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| Sunday, 10 April 2005 |
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Coconuts from heaven Sunday parable by Sunanda Mahendra "I am so thirsty that I cannot stand this drought. We got to find some
water or some other liquid from somewhere", said Mana, the leader of the
tribe of hunters who lived down South in the distant past. He had a
'Let's walk further deep into the forest towards the sea coast", said Mana to his retinue of hunters. They did not want to do any hunting as they saw the suffering of animals in the drought ridden areas, but they went looking for water. They felt so tired, that they could not talk to each other. As they went silently looking for water, Mana shouted all of a sudden, to his followers 'Look', he said pointing his finger to a tree, 'look at that fruit, a great big fruit like the tummy of a giant'. They all looked up the tree and found a massive fruit hanging from a thin stalk. The tree was tall and slim. The massive fruits were seen in a cluster. "I am sure there is some liquid inside those fruits, said Mana to the surprise of his followers. "How do you know that?" asked the followers. "I guess there ought to be a certain sweet liquid for my father used to say that there had been a fruit brought from the heaven called suratura which resembles the fruit in this tree. This may be that particular tree and we must test it". "How are you going to do that?" asked some of the followers of Mana, not knowing what their leader was going to do. "Someone should climb the tree and pluck that fruit carefully, without damaging the outer layer", said Mana. "Then?" "Then, we must see what is inside the fruit". "That can be done right now", said one of them nominating himself as the climber. There was hardly any time to waste. Everybody was feeling thirsty. But it was not as easy as one would imagine. The climber had no previous experience of climbing this type of tall trees. But he would not give up hope. The others looked on, while the climber slowly and steadily climbed of the tree like a tree frog, gradually reaching the top. The climber had a sharp knife stuck in his waist. He pulled it out, with one hand, and held the trunk of the tree by the other. It was a hard task. But the climber was skilful enough to perform his duty. "Get to a side for the giant fruit will drop down any moment", said Mana to his followers who were at the foot of the tree. They all watched the act from a distance, as the climber went on cutting the stalk. The fruit fell with a thud and stood on the ground like a massive oval shaped pot dropped down from heaven. The group of men, went round and round touching and tapping the giant fruit in amazement and curiosity. Then Mana, wanted to cut open the lid found on the side of the stalk. This three tiered spot has to be slid open, he thought touching the giant fruit. "That I will do", thought the leader. While he was engaged in the task of removing the edge of the stalk the others were trying to help him. He carefully cut open the space leaving a tiny layer to be pierced. "Now look", he said keeping his ears to the layer "there is some liquid inside. So we got to be careful not to waste it. I am going to pierce it". While everyone looked with awe, Mana pulled out a wood hatchet and made a triangular cut. As soon as the act was over, the liquid inside gushed out like from a giant fountain. Mana tasted the liquid and found it quite tasty and nourishing. He drank as much as he could and invited the followers to do the same. The thirty two members of the group drank as much as possible of the heavenly liquid, which gave them extra power to work. "This indeed is a heavenly fruit", said some of the members relaxing and waiting to see what was going to happen next. When all of them drank to their heart's content, there was still more remaining, enough for more people. It looked as if they had never been happier than at this moment in their life, spent in the jungle. When the liquid inside was over, Mana gave them another order. "Can one of you creep inside this giant fruit and see what is inside, for there ought to be something that is suitable for all of us to eat". Then Mana widened the opening enabling a person to creep without much difficulty. A slim member of the group volunteered to creep inside with his scraping axe called vaya. The creeper found some whitish creamy kernel inside the fruit. He scraped the kernel or the madaya as they call it. At first, he tasted the kernel and then sent out little by little for the rest, to the members of the group. They enjoyed the nourishing tasty kernel. "Oh this indeed is the heavenly fruit", said Mana. As they quenched their thirst and appeased their hunger, they rested awhile and went off to the village. Mana was desirous of coming back to this site once again. All those who drank the liquid and ate the kernel thanked Mana for his discovery. "Let us plant one of these fruits in our village", suggested the followers the thirty two members went to the village and came back once again to pluck several fruits in order to plant it in their village. Holding a tree planting ceremony they planted some of the fruits in the village grove. As time passed by tall trees grew and to their surprise the fruits were not so big or gigantic as they saw at the first instance. They were small in size. But the difference was that they grew in large bunches with ten or fifteen in each bunch. "This is quite surprising", said Mana, handing over one of the fruits to a vedamahattaya the village physician. There may have been some ill-effect on the way. This is what you may call asvaha (evil eyes) or katavaha (ill-effects caused through the mouth), but it may be so, for we have got the right type of nut we wanted for all our day-to-day activities. This will help us to solve most of our problems", said the hermit like village physician taking the nut to his hand". This is indeed a healing nut and all the parts of this nut as well as the tree will be heaven's gift to us. It is our duty to safeguard it. This we should call pol and the tree should be called suratura or the heavenly tree". Since then the tree became known as polgaha or suratura. (This is recreated from a Sinhala legend titled 'pol lada hati' retold by the renowned scholar Munidasa Cumaratunga in his collection of essays and legends titled Prabandha Sangrahaya).
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retinue
of thirty-two members who roamed about the forest, looking for some rivulet
or brook to fetch water. But they found all the water ways had gone dry with
even the animals who roamed about in the forest finding it difficult to live
without a drop of water, in the severe drought. 
