The strange lineage of John de Silva

By Padma EDIRISINGHE

Many years ago when we were on a Galle bound trip in casual conversation with Sunil Siriwardena (SS) manager of a beach hotel I found that he descendedfrom a group of people who had come down from the far corners of Pasdun Korale on the eve of the 16th century to aid Tikiri Kumaru Rajasinghe to salvage the island from the greedy Iberians who were running pell --mell all over Asia, the Americas and Africa.

SS's ancestor never returned to his area but settled down at Mulleriyawa and ever since the family line that showed such gusto with the sword manifested equal gusto in the arena of business and today they run factories, tea factories and a chain of hotels.

You don't go round looking for this rare brood unless you are doing research but sometimes they just push against you.

I had my second brush with such a brood due to my attendance at a commemorative ceremony of that famous playwright, John de Silva where I was handed a cute life story of him written by his great grandson Mahinda Makalande. This time the antecedents have their roots in the Gampola period and again Pasdun Korale gets swirled in the tapestry of the family saga.

Brilliant playwright

Before going further to the 14th century, for those not interested in such bowels of time let me briefly give some data on this brilliant playwright. He lived between 1857 and 1922 when the island was getting crushed under the boots of imperialists. You may have already noticed he was a cultural puzzle or anomaly.

His original family name of Makalande had gone into abeyance during the Portuguese period when the Sinhalas were getting generously gifted with Portuguese names. So, John de Silva's ancestor living in Kotte who survived this period of history would have got baptised as a Silva.

His lineage differs from that of SS, owner of Sunil Beach Hotel of Hikkaduwa in that the generations to follow stuck to the new. In fact, John de Silva who wrote that haunting hymn to the Buddha, Danno Budunge that titillates music lovers down the years, had been a Christian! The last song he had composed however reveals that in his last stages he veered towards the main religion of his race that he had heralded via drama.

He seemed to be a cultural riddle in his dress too. Like Anagarika Dharmapala and Piyadasa Sirisena, patriots born in proximate times, he degraded the costumes of the West that tainted the indigenous culture though minus any explanations he stuck to the tie, coat and trousers of the West. Well, brilliant and talented personnel are said to often exhibit quaint facets of personality.

That could apply to John de Silva, whom according to his great grandson had been given the epithet Ceylon's Shakespeare by the one and only Director of Education then, E.B. Denham. Now back to the roots of his lineage running about 700 years back probably providing the sparks for his frenzied nationalism that burst through a swirling mass of song and drama titillating mainly Colombo's audiences of the 19th and 20th centuries whose entertainment hunger had been satiated only by South Indian theatrical groups.

History

History repeats itself violently in this small island. The Tamil threats from the North constantly occur and recur. The time involved was the 14th century and it was the Gampola period.

The specific period, the reign of Vikramabahu III (1301-74) vigour of the ancient regime had faded what with constant shifts and turbulence and the kings of the North as those dubbed the Arya Chakravarthi line were descending from Jaffna to extend their power Southwards. The Sinhala King however aided by the Commander Alakeshwara could thwart the invasion and as an act of gratitude had appointed him Senevirath (Commander-in-chief) of Raigama province.

He had felt that the answer to the constant threats from Jaffna was a well-fortified city.

Thus was born the fortified city or Kotte dubbed Sri Jayewardenepura, the resplendent city that cropped up by the Diyawanna. All that is rather known Lankan history.

What is rather unknown is that Alakeshwara himself, a stranger to this area solicited the support of the chiefs of Raigam and Pasdun Korales in this massive task of building the fortified city whose echoes of glory today resonate only in the Sandeshas after its total destruction by a heartless Western tribe who came two centuries later.

According to the genealogy history charted by Mahinda Makalande the chieftains of the villages of Bulathsinhala and Makalande were among the invited chieftains.

Ancestral family

It is interesting to trace how the history of the Makalande family (the ancestral family of John de Silva) gets woven into the tapestry of the history of Kotte city.

It becomes almost an appendage of Portuguese power after Prince Don Juan Dharmapala, grandson of Bhuvanekabahu the 6th donates by will in 1551 the kingdom and its territories to the Portuguese. Nothing is heard of the Makalande family after this till John de Silva surfaces 400 years later as resuscitator of vital themes of Sinhala Buddhist history into the most entrancing dramas rich with the most captivating songs that fired national sentiments.

In fact after his Sri Wickrema Rajasinghe play that focused on the monarch in a positive light had its show it had been banned by the British Government! What happened during the intervening period to the Makalande family for 400 hidden years after which they emerged as the De Silvas?

For survival there is nothing like flowing with the tides especially when it came to a matter of do or die. Till the Sinhala Buddhist kings ruled in the Kotte city the family served them faithfully and in a foremost position.

But once Dharmapala made his famous or infamous gift, the family embraced Christianity and changed their name too as most of the main families had done at this time.

Mahinda Makalande, the greatgrandson now living in our midst has taken pains to research into the later phases of the family line that comes down to the Dutch period.

The earliest recorded ancestor he has hit upon is Don Johannes.

The Dutch influence in nomenclature is manifest. Village Telembuwatte has been his residential village. According to Mahinda the village now bisected by the Kotte main road today is a large expanse of land seething with houses as Mahinda's own house. Johannes married Leonora Rodrigo of Narahenpita. Unto them are born Bastian, Jamel and Dineshia. Bastian marries Dona Isabella of Nawala and their children are Johannes (11), Karolis, Karnelis, John, George and Emelia. John here is the one who blossomed into the grand playwright who inspired a resurgent Lanka via aesthetic channels as she groped in colonial darkness that strangled her individuality. Dineshia however seems to have married into a Buddhist family and begets a son who later enrobes as Sri Subhithi of Battaramulla making John de Silva and this famous prelate cousins.

John de Silva who had been trailing all over the country Gampola, Kandy and Peradeniya as an English teacher and later took to law (the zest for life surging within him) showed a literary bent and began to contribute to newspapers too on topics of national interest. But many are of the view that the robed relative supplied young John, by faith Christian and educated at Cotta Institute and later at Colombo Academy supplied him the themes for his plays that served as awakening calls for Sinhala Buddhist resurgence.

The record of John de Silva's life, made more colourful by three legal marriages as well as the sensational anecdotes connected to his bursting into Lanka's theatre world (including the one in which his theatre was burnt by jealous city thugs) is too voluminous to be accommodated into a newspaper article and the reader is recommended as further reading the biography written by Mahinda Makalande.