Back to the roots

Folk Tales on Kandyan
Kings of Sri Lanka
Translated by G.A.Nalinie
Sarasavi Publishers,Nugegoda

Reviewed by G.A. Mathupema

Inculcation of traditional awareness of the country in which you live, is a vital necessity in education which is very much felt when you consider the type of education imparted to the children in international schools in this country, in which school syllabuses in England are followed.

Children come to know the history of England sans any knowledge of the history of their mother country.

These children are very familiar with king Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table; but they know next to nothing about King Rajasinghe II.

The children who study in these institutions become aliens in their mother country. In fact, the need of traditional conditioning in literature has been emphasised by the celebrated critic T.S. Eliot.

This need has been considerably fulfilled by the translation of the book of Magadigata Janakatha by D.P. Wickramasinghe which has been done by the veteran writer G.A. Nalinie.

Although I referred to this book as a translation, it is rather an adaptation in which she has modified the original work, seeing to the needs of the children in their history education. Moreover, she has added her remarks on various incidents and issues that are presented in the original work.

Children

She is well qualified to this task being a graduate in history of the Kalaniya University and was a resource person the National Institute of Education, Maharagama.

There are a good number of books to her credit some of them involving history. In most of her books there is a keen sense of the needs of the children, particularly in history.

It is a pity that the children who know about the Knights of the Round Table in the history of England know next to nothing about King Rajasinghe II.

This heroic deeds have been profusely given in his book. King Rajasinghe II was travelling in rural areas in disguise. Once he was feeling very hungry and stepped into the house of a poor old woman.

She gave him the hot milk rice to eat. In his hunger, he was hurriedly picking up a morsel here another there.

The old dame observing this told him, that the way how he was eating hot milk rice was similar to the war activities of King Rajasinghe II.

She advised him to eat systematically not knowing that he was the king himself. The king took her advice seriously and applied it in his war tactics. He won the battle and summoned the old dame to the palace and rewarded her profusely. On another occasion the king had been advised by an old man.

Impression

While perusing this book, I got the impression that Sinhala kings of yore had been in constant touch with common people. A wide variety of kings has been presented in this book. Some are noted for their bravery, others for their humanity and yet others for their humbleness.

Some stories are noted for their anthropological value e.g. Story number one and number 16. In these stories, the origin of the name Senkadagala and Kundasale has been given.

The conscientious motives of the writer in bringing out a book of this nature should be appreciated. She had the sole motive of edifying the future generation, being aware of the spectacular and grand traditions of the past.

The book is written in lucid language and suit the children of post primary level. Also it is good reading for adults.