Anagarika Dharmapala:

The powerhouse of Buddhist revival in Sri Lanka

by Justice P.H.K. Kulatilaka

Dr. Ian Goonatileke in his book Images of Sri Lanka through American Eyes while dealing with Col. Henry Steel Olcott had this pleasing words spoken of our national hero Anagarika Dharmapala.

‘He (Col. Olcott) fired the Anagarika Dharmapala to provide the indigenous cutting edge to the religious and educational weapon he had forged and this great Sinhala nationalist was the true native product of the Olcott phase of Buddhist evangelism.

Dharmapala thereafter spearheaded, in his own millennial fashion, the nativistic reaction to colonialism and rode the rising tide of religio - nationalist pressure which Olcott had helped to form’.

David Hewavitharana entered the battlefield at a time when the Christian missionary drive was at its deadliest. Armed with the blessings of the Imperial rulers they had already made a tremendous progress in converting the local Buddhists comprising nearly 90 percent of the island’s population.

The Buddhist education was at a low ebb.There was wholesale discrimination against the Buddhists. In Charles Dickens’ words it was the worst of times for the Buddhist people in Ceylon [as she was called then].

The missionary drive was all out to break down the people's faith in their religion. It is believed that so long as the island is blessed with the blessings of the Buddhas's sacred Tooth Relic the Supreme Dhamma will be protected. Thus we see two great warriors donning yellow robes taking the challenge posed by the missionaries.

They were the Most Ven. Hikkaduwe Sri Sumangala Thera [the Viharadhipathi of Sripada, founder of Vidyodaya Pirivena and a world renowned scholar], and indefatigable Miggettuwatte Gunananda Thera of Panadura Vade fame.

Charisma

Most Ven. Sumangala Thera was a living force during those difficult days. He was gifted with a great personal charisma.No doubt young David’s early acquaintance with the great Bhikkhus provided him with a vision he was looking for. That point in time he wouldn’t have thought that he was going to be a live wire along with the great American Col Henry Steel Olcott in laying the foundation for the Buddhist Renaissance.

In this regard it is necessary to mention of Dhammalankara Thera, the chief prelate of Amarapura Nikaya, Waskaduwe Subuthi Thera and Pothuwila Indrajothi Thera who had lavishly contributed to the rekindling and uplifting of the national and Buddhist cause. Now, with all the Buddhist leaders around it was going to be the best of times for the people struggling to escape from the vicious claws of the missionaries.

National hero

Young Don David Hewavitharana was born on September 17, 1864 to a rich Buddhist family in the furniture business, founders of presently famed Don Carolis and Sons. Sri Lanka commemorates his 150th birth anniversary. He is honoured as a national hero for his immense contribution towards the restoration of the dignity and the religious and cultural regeneration of the oppressed masses. A

stamp was issued honouring the great Buddhist revivalist and national leader. According to Balangoda Sobitha Thera, the present incumbent of Vidyodaya Pirivena, it was Angarika Dharmapala’s maternal grandfather Don Alwis Dharmawardene who donated a vast block of land in Maradana to build the island’s first Buddhist monastic college Vidyodaya Pirivena.

It was in the same premises that Aangarika Dharmapala founded the Maha Bodhi Society in 1891. His was a family which truly valued Buddhism. He was proud of his Sinhala Buddhist ancestry.

The change

As many other children of rich families of the then colonial Ceylon he attended Christian schools in his early student days. Among those were St. Mary’s College [Pettah], St. Benedict College, Christian Missionary School, Kotte, S. Thomas’ College and Colombo Academy. His young mind would have transformed into a correct perspective while personally undergoing indelible experience of the Christian missionary drive in action.

To substantiate the above point I cite the following incidents. On a day prior to the Vesak Full Moon Poya Day young David had asked Warden Miller of S. Thomas’ College for permission to take leave on the Poya Day to take part in religious observances. Vesak Poya Day was not a public holiday then. The warden had refused permission. Nonetheless, David absented himself from school. On the following day at the school assembly he received 'six of the best' as punishment.

In another incident when the Catholic Bishop Hilarian Sillani visited the school young David was asked to kneel and kiss the ring on the clergyman’s finger to get his blessings. David refused to obey. Reportedly, the irate warden had said, ‘We don’t come here to teach you English, but we come to Ceylon to convert you'.

The insulting utterances made by padres at Pettah Catholic School when David was a student in primary classes, ridiculing Buddhist children worshipping the Buddha’s statue to the effect ‘Look at your mud image. You are worshipping clay’, would have echoed and re-echoed in his tender mind.

He had the taste of repression that the followers of the ‘pagan’ religion were undergoing during the Imperial Rule. (vide N.E. Weerasuriya Q.C's book Ceylon and Her People).

While studying in Christian schools, with the blessings of his parents he had the opportunity of associating some of the leading Bhikkhus. By now he had developed a passionate love of English poetry his favourites being, P.B. Shelley and John Keats.

In an article by Rohana Wasala titled ‘Anagarika Dharmapala and Queen Mab’ it is stated that David’s favourite poem was Queen Mab. In Flame in Darkness - the life and Sayings of Anagarika Dharmapala written by an English Bhikkhu Maha Sthavira Sangarakshita, Dharmapala explained why he admired the poem.

'I never ceased to love its lyric indignation against tyrannies and injustices that man heaps on himself and its passion for individual freedom’.

When he was in his teens David came in touch with Ven. Migettuwatte Gunananda who was residing at Kotahena temple. He learnt Sinhala and Pali at Vidyodaya Pirivena where he met the Most Ven. Hikkaduwe Sri Sumangala Thera. His teacher was Ven. Heiyanthuduwe Devamittha Thera.

In no time he became well versed in Pali scriptures as well. He was so inspired by the Buddha's sublime Dhamma that he got obsessed with the idea of pioneering a Buddhist revivalist movement which was in the offing to salvage the lost rights and privileges of the Buddhists. He realised that time was ripe for him to act.

The scenario as existed then was brought out vividly in a speech made by Col. Olcott at a subsequent convention. He said, “those who were clerks, proctors and merchants were ashamed to acknowledge the Dhamma of Buddhism.

They, men of the world, streaming with sin, ashamed to follow in the footsteps of the Buddha - men of good families gruelling in the dark, for fear of Christian opinions in authority - ashamed of the Lord - caring so little for the Buddha, that they deliberately sent their children for their education to missionaries who made no secret of turning away Buddhists to Christianity.”

Not only the Buddhists had lost their freedom but looked like they were outlawed in their own country. In the South and North to get a government job boys and girls had to attend Christian schools. In Jaffna such government employees were identified as ‘ rice Christians’ or ‘panchadchara Christiana’. In the South of Ceylon the seekers after jobs who gave up their religion were called ‘government Christians or Buddhist Christians’ or ‘sine Chrito Christiani.'

Ammunition

The arrival of Col. Henry Steel Olcott accompanied by Madame Helena Pavlov Blavasky in the island was ammunition for young David Hewavitharana who was planning to battle out the threat posed by the missionaries. He would very soon drop the Christian part of his name and identify himself as Anagarika Dharmapala which indicated the change into the life of a recluse.

Anagarika Dharmapala was in his early twenties when he was introduced to Col. Olcott by the two great Bhikkhus most Ven. Sri Sumangala Thera and Migettuwatte Gunananda Thera. Col. Olcott was very much interested in the young Anagarika.

Almost all our readers had seen the portrait of the Anagarika. Nevertheless It will not be complete until and unless we hear of his charismatic personality as seen by an unbiased foreign eye. As a world missionary of Buddhism he addressed the World Congress of Religions held in Chicago on September 20, 1893. ‘St. Louis Observer’ of September 21, 1893 carried a description of Anagarika.

“With his black, curly locks thrown back from his broad brow, his clean clear eyes fixed upon his audience, his long fingers emphasising the utterances of his vibrant voice, he looked the very image of a propagandist, and one trembled to know that such a figure stood at the head of the movement to consolidate all the disciples of the Buddha and to spread the ‘light of Asia’ throughout the civilised world". What a wonderful description. Anagarika Dharmapala was at the prime of his youth then.

There were three great men who were responsible for salvaging the lost rights and privileges of the Buddhists who accounted for nearly 90 percent of the population then. The greatest of them was Most Ven. Hikkaduwe Sri Sumangala Thera.

Anagarika Dharmapala was quite young but he possessed and acquired all the qualities of a brave and intelligent leader in no time under the guidance and influence of the great thera and Col. Olcott, a man of steel.

The starting point was the Buddhist Convention held in Galle on July 4, 1880. Writing to ‘The Buddhist David Hewavitharana [Not yet Anagarika Dharmapala] had this to say, ‘The address of Olcott made a deep impression on the whole assembly. From this meeting dates the present revival of Buddhism’.

When Col. Olcott along with Leadbeater [who later became the principal of Ananda College] traversed the length and breadth of the island reawakening the Buddhists young David accompanied them as their interpreter speaking to the people in their own language what was preached to them by the great American Col. Olcott.

Transport

Two important events were initiated at this stage. First was the creation of the Buddhist Education Fund, the results of which were spoken to by Dharmapala in 1990 in his article to ‘The Buddhist’ in the following terms ‘We now have Buddhist schools opening everywhere thousands of Buddhist children were taught their religion’.

The other important event is the compilation of the Buddhist Catechism. The original and the Sinhala version appeared on July 24, 1881. It was in fact a brainchild of Col. Olcott.

To overcome the difficulties and embarrassments he faced in finding transport Col. Olcott making use of his ‘Yankee ingenuity’ built ‘the Two wheeled travelling cart on springs which could give ample sleeping accommodation for four people’.

He said, “after a lapse of 15 years it has been used by Dharmapala, Leadbeater, Banbery…’.

Ven. Balangoda Sobitha Thera of Vidyodaya Pirivena told me that it was the same vehicle that paraded the streets very recently to mark the commemoration of Anagarika’s 150th birth anniversary. How people flocked to see the vehicle these days was reminiscent of what happened then as described by Col. Olcott in chapter xxi of his diary.

He said ‘It was as much a novelty to the simple country folk and priest and laity used to flock around to see its mechanical wonders’.

Dharmapala accompanied Col. Olcott and Madame Blavatsky to India for a short period. On his return ‘spearheaded in his own millennial fashion, the nativistic reactions to colonialism and rode the rising tide of religio-nationalist pressures which Olcott had helped to form’.

His charismatic figure, fiery oratory reasoned speech and fluency in Sinhala and English and selfless commitment to the cause he was fighting for inspired the audience everywhere. That was the time when much loved Sinhala novelists Piyadasa Sirisena, W.A. Silva and popular playwright Proctor John de Silva too were making their contributions to the national cause. In the circles of the Queen’s House party whose members were Governor’s supporters the patriots were ridiculed saying, ‘they were nobodies trying to be somebodies.’

The government’s Excise Policy was ‘always a vulnerable target of attack’ in Anagarika’s fiery speeches. Addiction to drugs and liquor was very much criticised. He was regarded as a dangerous agitator.

The Colonial Government was making every effort to put the blame on Anagarika Dharmapala when riots broke out in 1915. Fortunately for him he was engaged in his propaganda work in India at the time. His brother was falsely accused of treason and was jailed and died in prison.

Colonial minutes indicate that if Anagarika was in Ceylon he would have been among the first detainees along with his two brothers. He wrote a number of letters to the Colonial Office explaining that he had nothing to do with the riots and also stressing the need to have Buddhist representation in the Legislative Council. Colonial Office treated them with disdain and arrogance. It is seen by a minute made in his letter dated August 6, 1915.

‘This scoundrel is suspected of being more responsible for the riots than anybody else. No notice need be taken of this letter’. Dharmapala was misunderstood and misinterpreted by local authorities to the Colonial Office.

Later on the verdict of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the causes of the riots of 1915 completely exonerated Anagarika Dharmapala of all allegations levelled against him.

The government had to apologise for a miscarriage of justice over the death of Anagarika’s brother.

Sublime

His influence in the spread of the sublime teachings of the Buddha was felt very much in India. What he gained from his close association with Col. Olcott a man with a messianic zeal and in depth study of the Dhamma under the tutelage of great Hikkaduwe Sri Sumangala Thera and other venerable Bhikkhus may have stood in good stead in his endeavour in taking the Dhamma to the hearts of the down trodden masses in India.To commemorate his 150th birth anniversary India will issued a stamp on October 25.

Anagarika engaged himself in a strenuous legal battle to regain the undisputed claim of the Buddhists to the Buddhist site at Buddha Gaya. Reportedly, there were days when he had to sleep under a tree. Unfortunately, when the judgement was delivered by the Indian Court confirming the Buddhist claim Anagarika was dead.

Anagarika Dharmapala was a World Missionary of Buddhism. He addressed the World Congress of Religions in Chicago. He was involved in taking the teachings of the Buddha to the United Kingdom and parts of Asia.

Anagarika Dharmapala at the close of his life was ordained a Bhikkhu adopting the name of his teacher as Devamittha Thera. His undaunted efforts were limited not only to the revival of Buddhism but also he contributed to the freedom struggle of the Lankan patriots which was in the offing.

The writer is a former Director, Sri Lanka Judges' Institute.