A mighty Sinhala king studies anthropology

This story I heard while in Gampola, once known as Gangasiripura when it was the capital of Lanka and born again out of the cash crop economy of the 19th century. In Henry Byrd's first coffee plantation in Sinhapitiya once stood the royal palace. I cannot vouch for the exact authenticity of the tale for it is mostly hearsay but the general framework of it is true if we go by the very credible and celebrated book, the historical Relations of Ceylon by Robert Knox., the political prisoner of a king.

The later stage of the story is the Gampola Courts while the early stage had been the kingdom of Rajasinghe 11 who fought the Portuguese and the Dutch way back in the 17th century. The king while having it very rough in between these global powers had various side interests one of which was anthropology. Anyway this tale is not only about this monarch but about Donell Appu.

The more stylised called him Donnel. The very crafty who wished to underpay him for his labours went so far as to call him 'Mr. Donell'. The villagers called him Daniel Appu. The old toothlesswoman residing in a house by the Gampola railway station who had kindly given the villager food and lodgings when he had to stay over called him 'Mr. Door Bell'. She was rather hard of hearing. Donell himself had all his senses intact and for sustenance had turned a jack of all trades, famous in the locality fixing up a broken pipe or faucet or any gadget that was an outcome of the Industrial Revolution and decides to go awry at intervals unlike products of the orient.

This time Donell alias Daniel Appu alias Door Bell tried his hand at a new thing like Rajasinghe 11 taking to anthropology. That was cattle theft. He had not only stolen a calf, but killed the animal and cut it into pieces and sold them to the meat market at Gampola. All were grave crimes and tainted the name of the man with many names in the majorly Buddhist and Hindu community that denizened the hill city. Many of his clients were sorry that the man had got himself into such a tangle.

Pious Buddhist

The magistrate himself a very pious Buddhist was one volcano of rage as he started questioning Donell Appu.

"The cow and the calf and its father are revered in Sinhala Buddhist society and Tamil Hindu society. But you chose to steal and kill this calf so ruthlessly, fragment it and sell it to the bucher.

The man's defending lawyer now hinged on the point the judge was playing on a religious note. He said, "Your honour, the man is neither a Buddhist nor a Hindu. He is a Christian who thinks it nothing to gnaw the succulent bones of a calf."

"What!"

"His address is given as Gonahenawatte, off Pupuressa."

"Are these missionaries now active in those areas too decimate the Buddhist population?"

"No." pipes in Donell Appu emboldened by the way the proceedings were going on, "My family has been of that faith since the 17th century. My ancestor had been an Englishman who had been captured by the king for purposes of study of human variations."

Gravity

Actually Donell himself was very fair-skinned and had streaks of red in his hair. But his attempts to divert the judge's attention from the gravity of the crime to anthropology failed and he was given a rigorous prison sentence of six months despite his proud connection to Pax Britainnica.

The toothless old woman (who actually related to me this story) had been in the court. She too, not of a race that revered the cattle was not so much of sympathy for the calf but for her Door Bell just once.

And the man unmarried and not interested in continuing the progeny of Donnels or Door Bells had come straight from prison once released, to her house where he found a warm welcome.

He was never inclined to relate to her about his racial origins for she was half-deaf and now he tried to satiate her curiosity..

"That thing about the king? Is it true, Mr. Door Bell?"

"Yes. Madam. That is a strong legend in our village," he bawled.

"Very very strange. And this king, did he subject you to some examination?"

Ancestor

"Good heavens, madam, you are muddled. It was not I who would have got observed but my ancestor who was unfortunate to sail in that wretched ship. And it happened about 400 years ago".

"Terrible. What happened?" Her curiosity was fuelled by the fact that her origins too are from the West and here she is stranded in Asia. Her father who worked as a railway driver had decided to migrate from Colombo and settle down here. The rest of the family had now gone to heaven giving refuge to stray characters who could talk some English.

"Anne, the ship captained by the elder Robert Knox, had set sail from England. Those were greedy times, our Suddas going all over to fleece the Asians and the cattle to add to their stocks. This Knox was an old fool who knew no protocol and was bloated with the power of his race. When you step into a country you have to inform the ruler.

Legend

That was protocol followed in any civilised country. But he thought so little of this country that he just landed among the "primitives" and got his men to cut trees for some furnishing of the ship and then the king's men had rounded all the Britishers and hauled them before the king who was doing his studies in human variations".

Of course, there was much more to the story. But that is all what Door Bell remembered.

The woman herself had heard about Robert Knox and now wished to probe further. "I am not interested in that man for it was his dad who got us all into that trouble. But the son himself has turned a legend in our area for he made his escape back to England.

But my ancestor who was in the ship's crew had had enough of adventures and just got married to a comely Kandyan woman with a knot at the back of her head and settled down in the village. And the line down has since suffered in the godforsaken rurals of this country."

"God forsaken? But you stuck to your God?"

"That is a big mystery, madam".

The mystery is not confined to that fact alone in this story.

It encompasses so many mysteries regarding the human race one of which was that king Rajasinghe II, born of a queen made eccentric by harrowing circumstances was trying to solve in his own way.

He had been educated by a Father Negrao, a tutor his Christian mother had selected but don't blame the Father alone for the prince's ways.

The other mystery is, despite his failings, the king has joined the galaxy of Lanka's greatest rulers due to his savvy in battle and state craft.