Manjusri’s rich artistic legacy

This week’s column is dedicated to L.T.P Manjusri (Lokukamkanamge Thomas Peiris) who had played a pivotal role in shaping the contemporary Sri Lankan art. In recognition of singular contribution to literature, creative communication through art, he was awarded the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award in 1979 and an honorary Doctor of Letters degree by the University of Peradeniya in March 1981.

L.T.P Manjusri was born on October 28, 1902 in the town of Alutgama. At an early age he marvelled at the sight of monks begging for alms which led him to enter the Buddhist order as a novice in 1922. Being a voracious reader, Manjusri soon became a scholar in Sinhala, Pali, Sanskrit and Buddhist philosophy. In 1932, Manjusri went to Shantiniketan to study Chinese and came under the influence of legendary teachers such as Nandala Bose, Prof.Vidrushekara Bhattacharya, noted for his knowledge of Pali, Sanskrit and Buddhist philosophy, and Prof. Lan Yon Chen, an expert in Chinese.

In 1932, he returned to Sri Lanka and stayed at Gotami Vihara, Borella, visiting Buddhist temples throughout the country, making copies of paintings of the Kandyan School. Manjusri was one of the founders of the famed ’43 Group’ along with such luminaries as Harry Pieris, Ivan Peries, Aubrey Collette, George Claessen, George Keyt, Lionel Wendt, Geoff Beling, Justin Deriniyagala, Richard Gabriel. Although Manjusri left the group at an early stage, the collective of artists known as ’43 Group’ were the best-known artists of the 20th century.

Their contribution in shaping the contemporary Sri Lankan arts is legendary in that the movement spearheaded by the ’43 Group’ marked a seminal development in the evolution of arts in Sri Lanka. Manjusri inspired by ’43 Group’s central motifs such as surrealism and cubism made a pictorial vocabulary which he effectively used to create visual equivalents for the vividly-realised visions of the subconscious mind.

Manjusri held his exhibitions of paintings in diverse parts of the globe including Smithsonian Institution where his works were exhibited in 1979. Manjusri wrote both in Sinhala and English specialising in the area of ancient and medieval art and temple paintings. Raising public awareness on the importance of preserving temple paintings was one of the major contributions made by Manjusri in preserving Sri Lankan art forms. He extensively researched and documented the temple paintings so that they could be studied by future scholars.

L T P Manjusri, apart from being a brilliant painter, was also a scholar in Sinhala, Pali and Chinese.

Brilliant scholar

L T P Manjusri’s role as a leading scholar of the day should be perceived against the milieu. Manjusri, being a scholar in Sinhalese, Pali and Sanskrit jointed the formidable Buddhist intellectual movement of revival which began in the middle of the 19th century with the establishment of Pirivene’s and with the renewed interest in the revival of Buddhist culture, Sinhalese literature, language and tradition.

Manjusri was one of the four formidable intellectuals who formed the movement which made up of the Ven. S. Mahinda, a Tibetan by birth who had come to then Ceylon, joined the Buddhist Order and wrote fiery polemical poetry extolling Sinhalese nationalism; the Ven. Kalalelle Ananda Sagara (better known as the poet Sagara Palansuriya), who was to become a member of the Sri Lankan parliament; and the Ven. Walpola Rahula, who went on to become a distinguished professor and author and the Vice-Chancellor of Vidyodaya University.

Preservation of temple murals

Manjusri is best remembered for his meticulous work in the documentation and preservation of temple murals which he recognised as a unique Buddhist artistic legacy. In a lengthy biographical note on Manjusri in presenting the Ramon Magsaysay Award, describes how Manjusri commenced the preservation of Temple paintings;

“On vacation in Ceylon in 1934 Manjusri put his newly developed artistic ability to the test. He began to make copies of temple murals, first at the Sunandarama Vihara at Ambalamgoda where he had seen and been impressed by a painting of dancing figures. Living in the temple compound, he spent 21 days tracing the painting, recording details and making careful notes of broken or destroyed portions, and he took another month reproducing the work in color. He returned to Shantiniketan with copies of seven murals. Tagore, who had taken up painting at the age of 68, was having an exhibition of his work at the school. Seeing Manjusri’s copies he insisted that one side of the exhibition room be reserved to display these temple murals.

The reproductions of the temple paintings caused a sensation at Shantiniketan, revealing a previously unknown treasure trove of Sinhalese religious art. Although historians were aware of the 5th century Sinhalese wall paintings at Sigiriya, which were roughly contemporary with the period of the great cave paintings of Ajanta, little if anything was known of the Sinhalese temple murals created during the period of Buddhist revival in the 18th and 19th centuries. These paintings, appreciated in Ceylon more for their moral and religious teachings than for their artistic merit, were crumbling away due to neglect and decay, or were being overpainted by zealous benefactors who wished to freshen temple interiors.

Traditions

The 18th and 19th century murals represented a continuation of the traditions of Buddhist art started under royal patronage by trained artists in earlier centuries, but they had been executed by rural artistes who interpreted the stories of the life of the historic Buddha and the Jataka tales ( stories of events in the previous lives of the Buddha) with accretions of contemporary life and folk traditions.

Harry Pieris, the Ceylonese Director of the Tagore School of Art, became interested in Manjusri’s copies, both as works of art and as priceless replicas of a vanishing tradition of religious art. When Manjusri wanted to present his mural copies to Shantiniketan, Pieris told him that the works should go back to Ceylon and bought the paintings from him for that purpose, offering him a sizeable sum of money. Having, as a monk, no use for large sums of money, Manjusri accepted only the amount necessary for his needs. Pieris continued to encourage the monk in his study of art and one summer paid his way to Darjeeling to see and purchase Nepalese and Tibetan Buddhist art objects available there. In Darjeeling Manjusri heard of a famous master in Gangtok, Sikkim. With Pieris’ aid he proceeded to that beautiful mountain kingdom where he was fortunate to receive his first and only formal training in painting from Abbot Uchima, the court painter to the Tashi Lama. Manjusri stayed in Sikkim for several months, studying the art and the Buddhist philosophy of the Lamas.”

His daughter Manjista Manjusri and son Kusan Manjusri are not only preserving the proud tradition of their legendary father but also they are artists in their own right. They are as talented as their celebrated father and have a thorough grasp of the unique style of LTP Manjusri.