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| Sunday, 12 March 2006 |
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Tales of a devoted traveller ('Kelani ganga flows with history-legend and sandesha - message poems' Author - Gamini de S. G. Punchihewa: Publisher - Stamford Lake Rs. 250) I have long been an interested reader of the many newspaper articles and books of Gamini Punchihewa, an indefatigable traveller along the little-known byways and river banks of our homeland that he loves so much. Five years ago he honoured our greatest river Mahaveli Ganga with his 'History and legent of the great sandy river'. In his latest book he has turned his sights nearer Colombo, the capital city 'willed' to us by our colonial master but never consecrated by a Sinhala King. The writer, most appropriately, begins with Kelaniya itself, not the rather shabby suburban township of today but with the Kalyani of yore. In the words of the Sandesha poems he quotes this was a city that 'mirrors our ancient heritage in its splendour' embowered in 'flowers of Sal, Sapu, Kapuru, Domba, while forest canopies... provide copious shade' and, as always in such poems 'Belles with tresses... dressed with flowers of Kadupul cascading down their bosoms bathe frolicking in the rippling waters of the river'. He wanders away from these delectable maidens to describe the myths, traditions and history of this sacred place once hallowed by the presence of the Living Buddha and, centuries later, desecrated by a cruel king whose sacrilege caused a tsunami to ravage his kingdom. Nearer our time he writes of the Bridge of Boats and the construction of Victoria Bridge. In one small chapter he thus captures the spirit of Kelaniya from the mists of legent and the poems of medieval times to the steel and concrete of today. Hardly anybody seems to be aware that Buddhist hermitages dating from the 2nd century B.C. are found in the Kelani Valley a mere 15 miles or so from bustling Colombo. The author has explored two of these. Samanbedda Raja Maha Viharaya near Hanwella and Koratota Len Viharaya near Kaduwela. He describes the fading rock inscriptions in archaic Sinhala by which princes and nobles dedicated cave hermitages to the forest dwelling Sangha in the early days of Buddhism in Sri Lanka. He goes on to describe unusual archaeological remains from this ancient period quoting extensively from scholars such as Parker and Paranavithana. Characteristically he goes on to describe the ever-renewing grove of 'Mayila' trees in the Samanbedda Vihara and the rituals of the Pattini Devale not far from here. He leaves temples for battlefields of yore when he describes the bloody encounters that took place here at Hanwella which was a strategic entry to the Sinhala kingdom in the tragic period when Portuguese, Dutch and British fought the armies of Sinhale. The blood sodden battlegrounds have become bazaars, and of the fortresses built by our conquerors all that remains, fittingly, is a heap of rubble and a shallow drain in the Resthouse garden. In the next two chapters the writer, using Nawagamuwa Pattini Devale as the centrepoint of his story, launches into a detailed description of the Pattini cult. This exotic goddess has clearly held him in thrall and he spends 30 pages (almost 1/3 of the book!) on this deity who seems to have no particular 'kinship' with the Kelani Ganga. But, on its own, this account twining Hindu legent, Sinhala documents and Prof. Gananath Obeysekera's anthropological studies is of interest. The writer's best travel writing is in his account of the fascinating rock temple of Pilikuttuwa, not far from Yakkala on the Kandy Road. Here too he finds remains of prehistoric habitation predating early Buddhist ruins by hundreds of thousands of years. Obviously our ancestors found the lush jungles of South West Sri Lanka a happy hunting grounds. The Vihara has survived the depredations of the Portuguese and contains intriguing and amusingly anachronistic murals from Victorian times. The wonderful vistas of hamlets, greenfields and distant Colombo from the hilltop is something the author will always remember, as did the bhikkus of yore when they chose this spot for meditation. I find this latest work of Gamini Punchihewa an interesting guidebook to lesser known places in the valley of the Kalani. |
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