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| Sunday, 19 January 2003 |
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Influence of Buddhism on our conversations by Padma Edirisinghe Subsequent to a busy assignment, I was in a rather relaxed mood and found time to have a chat with my "keera kola" supplier, a female in her 40s. Her husband had done the vanishing trick a few years back and now she feeds and educates her four children with the sole income earned from selling keera kola. Her trade rival another woman who plies the same ware along the same road in the backyard area of the new Parliament complex happened to pass by. Looking at her with disdain my keera kola chum said: "Nona. There goes Chinchi manavikawa. She will ogle any man she meets on the way". Now who is Chinchi manawikawa? Actually she lived some 2,500 plus years ago in India during Buddha's time. Human nature and ways of the world being the facets least subject to change in a world amazingly changing in the technological aspect, the Buddha too had His adversaries ever ready to contaminate His fame and purity via any foul method. So they got hold of this Chinchi, tied a pillow onto her tummy and let her loose on the audience listening with fervour to a sermon being delivered by the Great One. The woman had the audacity to go right before the audience and abuse the Lord, "So you sit there very complacently and preach bogus Bana after getting me into this state". Composure That the Buddha never lost his composure at the lurid verbal attack is a needless point to dwell on especially because the theme I am trying to develop is how characters who lived in India aeons of time ago, especially at the base of the Himalayan mountain range have become almost household names in Buddhist Lanka. Not only Chinchi but characters in Buddhist literature like Vessantara, Patachara, Mahaushada, Kevatta, Pinguttara, weave in and out of the everyday tapestry of conversation of the Lankan Buddhists. A man on being requested a loan or donation by another would say, "Do you think that I am Vessantara"? Well, Vessantara was a king, actually a Bodhisatva who was fulfilling his Dana (generosity) Paramee by donating to others everything he owned. Patachara even known to non Buddhists of Sri Lanka due to her playing a miserable role in Vesak pandals, too occurs frequently in our conversations. When someone recounts the tale of a woman who has been subject to various misfortunes, another would sigh and say. "Oh! She is just another Patachara". Mahaushada is almost a metaphorical character of a very wise man who would solve any issue while any craft old fox (two legged fox) is referred to as Kevattaya. But Kevattaya served in the royal court of king Vedeha long before Buddha's time for both these characters of Mahushada and Kevetta play their roles in Jathaka story ie. the Ummagga Jathaka. In fact today a certain minister is referred to as Mahaushada especially due to his erudite way of talking. And who is Pinguttara? A luckless fellow or more correctly a fellow who kicks off the luck that comes his way determined to wallow in misery. A man probably in a fit of mental disorder offered his lovely daughter to him but Pinguttara felt saddled with her and only wanted to get rid of her and did so by climbing up a tree and getting lost among its leafy boughs. Today our own society owns such peculiar characters and they are all called Pinguttaras. To this class belongs offsprings of very respectable and affluent families who plummet themselves into misery through habits such as drinking and use of drugs. During my sojourns in India I have tried to find out whether the average Indian is acquainted with these famous or infamous characters of Buddhist literature and only managed to draw a blank. Yet India is the birthland of Buddhism and around the Ganges (ganga) river the Supreme one and His disciples traversed miles and miles to retrieve humens from the morass of suffering. Walk into any slum of Wanathamulla or remote village off Wellassa or a sylvan landscape at the base of a Hatara Korale mountain like Batalegala, thanks to the spread of Buddhist literature via books and sermons these characters who lived two and half millennia ago, thousands of miles away in another country walk in and out of the everyday conversations of Lankans. Even popular expressions like "Aney anichchan" when something tragic happens like a death or accident, have their roots in Buddhism for aney anichchan really means, "Alas! The impermanence of all things!" (anichchan is the almost colloquial term for "anithya" ie. impermanance). The speakers themselves are utterly unaware that they are deliberating on cardinal teaching of Buddhism. But the expression comes to them almost naturally. Recently I myself said to myself" aney anichchan!" after a certain incident which some may not consider tragic but surprising. But I am here stating the truth and nothing but the truth. A robed female was introduced to me in a certain public place Immediately taking me into her confidence she asked me softly. "Have you seen the latest pamphlets that are distributed all over?" "What pamphlets, Venerable?" I asked with the utmost reverence I could muster. "Why, the ones where they compare SO and So to Kuveni? Actually don't you think the similarities they focus on are very true? The names of the husbands of both was Vijaya and each had two children only, a boy and a girl". Is this Budu Bana, I wanted to ask her. Doesn't the stuff you are drivelling about belong to Samprappalapa, frivolous and useless talk that gets one nowhere and hence was opposed by the Thathagatha vehemently?. But who am I to give a pep talk to robed females? So I said to myself in typical Lankan rural fashion, aney anichchan, what is going to happen to the future of the Buddha Sasana with characters like this. Won't its permanence too be at stake?. |
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