SUNDAY OBSERVER gifts Buddhist book

Reviewed by Kalakeerthi Edwin Ariyadasa

In a pleasantly surprising gesture, The Sunday Observer gifted a book to its readers. It is not just any book either. The book that was distributed free, reflected the spirit of the times. In the season, that is dedicated to the celebration of the 2600th anniversary of the Supreme Enlightenment, the free book presented by the Sunday Observer was on Buddhism in Sri Lanka. Its main title reads Island of Light. In the explanatory sub-titles, the content of the publication is further elaborated: "Buddhism in Sri Lanka. A concise history and guide to its sacred sites."

The author of this slim publication is T.Y. Lee - a keen follower of Buddhism. A citizen of Singapore, author T.Y. Lee's avowed mission is to make a continuing effort towards the uplift of Buddhism.

Impressive compliment

The author begins his prefatory note, with an impressive compliment to Sri Lankans. These are his words:

"This book is written in tribute to the people of Sri Lanka for their contribution to the preservation and spread of Buddhism within their own island and beyond."

Writer T.Y. Lee, displays a keen sensitiveness towards the fluctuations of the history of Buddhism in Sri Lanka, throughout the centuries.

His 72-page volume is in two parts. In the first part of the book, the author traces the history of Sri Lanka. Here he narrates the story of the island of Sri Lanka, deriving much of his material from the national chronicles - Mahawamsa and culawamsa .

What is exceptionally commendable about this book is its highly practical structure.

The material is presented in an easily assimilable format. Evidently, the work is primarily intended as a ready vade mecum for those who visit Sri Lanka on pilgrimage or as tourists. But, even the Sri Lankan reader will be grateful to author T.Y. Lee for these lucid notes, which makes their point pithily and memorably.

Developments

The book, authoritatively highlights, the main developments in Buddhist history of Sri Lanka. The author dwells on the fortunes of Buddhism and its temporary decline, when foreign powers - the Portuguese,the Dutch and the British invaded Sri Lanka.

The author records how the lustre of Buddhism dimmed for a while, when the sacred island was under the sway of British imperial rule.

Writer T.Y. Lee, devotes several spirited sections to recount the initiatives of popular movements, that relentlessly exerted, to counter the vicious efforts to destabilize the deeply entrenched sway of Buddhism.

The key-role played by the vigorously polemical Buddhist monk, Ven. Migetuwatte Gunananda Maha Thera in the globally renowned series of Christian-Buddhist debates widely known as "Panadura Vadaya" is apply highlighted by the author, as a crucial turning-point in the subsequent Buddhist revival.The author adorns this description, with a quaint illustration, that records an artist's impression of the main participants in this historical and religious polemical encounter.

Buddhist Renaissance

The author responsibly observes, that, it is this debate, that set the stage for the emergence of such stalwarts as Colonel Henry Steele Olcott and Anagarika Dharmapala in the globe-girdling Buddhist Renaissance, that came in the slip-stream of the debates.

In the segment titled "Upto the Present", (pages 25-29) the author focuses his attention on several outstanding Buddhist savants, who took to the spreading of the word of Buddha world-wide, with an astonishing zeal.

While making due references to the ever-fresh services of Ven. Madihe Pannasiha Nayaka Maha Thera and Ven. Narada Maha Thera, the author turns his attention to the unparalleled exertions of Ven. Dr. Kirinde Sri Dhammananda Nayaka Maha Thera. Along with those, he remembers Ven. M.M. Mahaweera Nayaka Maha Thera as well.

But, about author T.Y. Lee's book, there is the particular point, that, I just cannot understand.

Being an ardent Buddhist, and a citizen of the city state of Singapore, I just cannot see how he missed the massive religious services of the Singapore Buddhist Meditation Centre.

For several decades, the Chief Prelate of the Singapore Buddhist Meditation Centre, Ven. Weragoda Sarada Maha Thera has steadily brought out a whole series of important Buddhist tomes. His English rendering of Dhammapada titled "treasury of Truth," created publishing history in Singapore, when it elicited more than 2,000 telephone calls on the day it was officially launched. This phenomenon was reported in Shaits Times.

Buddhist themes

He brought out nearly one-hundred print media books and several E-books on Buddhist themes. These publications, (most of which are edited by Edwin Ariyadasa) have proved a Buddhist publishing sensation. I hope, that, in a subsequent edition of the present work, author T.Y.Lee will look at these Singapore Buddhist Publications and their contribution towards the spread of Buddhism, worldwide.

Ven. Dr. P. Gnanarama Thera who writes the FOREWORD to this work, participated actively in the Buddhist initiatives of the Singapore Buddhist Meditation Centre.

The second part of author T.V. Lee's book is a noteworthy guide to some of the sacred sites in Buddhist Sri Lanka. Those who travel to Sri Lanka in holy tours, will esteem this book.

I deem it proper to felicitate "The Sunday Observer" for this valued free gift. Generally, most of the inserts in Sunday newspapers, tend to be on tinset-dazzle issues.

But, with this free gift, the Sunday Observer has made a fresh publishing gesture. The Sunday Observer, I am sure, will continue to enrich readers with such profound gifts as these.

University fresher's traumas of transition

Reviewed by M. B. Mathmaluwe

The title page of this writer's copy of Dr. Siri Gunasinghe's (SG) Sinhala Novel, "Hevanella" bears '1960' as the year of the publication of its first edition and, at the end of its 147 - page text, it carries my inscription, 'Re-read:1983', which means, the allure of its story had not been lost to this reader even after 23 years: it speaks for itself; and, now after 50 years (2010), its English translation has appeared in the bookstalls. It has taken half a century, but this writer feels, the quality of Dr. Ms. Hemamali Gunasinghe's translation ('The Shadow') is well worth the long wait for it.

It is not intended here, to speak of the Sinhala book at any length, except to say that when it first appeared in 1960, it took the Sinhala reading public quite by surprise for, it may safely be said, nothing of its genre had been seen before by them and so, no wonder, their critical response was on a very wide spectrum; but it was seen, some writers of repute in this country, like Martin Wickramasinghe, it was evident from their comments, had taken it as a landmark work.

SG's novel, The Shadow, in essence, is a comprehensive analytical study of the workings of the mind of a university fresher trying to adjust himself to the changing circumstances of the new environment he has entered; the violent trauma he goes through in the process forms the warp and weft of the web that SG weaves as his story, of the responses and reactions of the new university entrant, Jinadasa caught in an irresistible tornado of events and circumstances which turn out to be the absorbing saga of the tortured soul of Jinadasa trying desperately to reorient himself but, in the end, submitting to forces too overwhelming for him to overcome.

In this conflict of forces the traditional entrenched values of a conservative Sinhala Buddhist society on the one hand and, on the other, the sophisticated neo-urban cultural values are at issue.

New environment

The new forces emerging, in which Jinadasa is caught from the moment he enters the new environment, the university, start the process of wearing down the many inhibitions with which he has come which are now in imminent danger of being breached: they are the traditional codes of conduct which has been inculcated in him from his childhood in the village under two main formative influences: his mother at home, and the Buddhist monk in the village temple.

His first natural reaction to these new forces is violent resistance true, but their siege on his defences is relentless and sustained and they slowly but steadily crumble.

Therefore his first vacation at home from university is a restless, twilight period; he is already beginning to feel alienated; his first inclination is to break loose from the umbilical cord of his mother's domination and other fetters of traditional discipline which he felt, were standing counter to his new found ways of freedom. The on-going battle between his former id and his present one, is violent where the new is trying to assert itself.

In the meantime, the transformation of Jinadasa is moving ahead; the transgressions against the former concepts and practices are consequent upon the new system of values, right and wrong that are slowly building in him:

"He remembered the university. He began to feel he had enjoyed some measure of freedom there... don't have the same freedom here. (p.42) The magnitude of the battle raging within him could be judged when he says:

"Two hours of struggle to concentrate on his reading had gained him nothing."

One important feature of this book is that the author makes an in-depth study of Jinadasa's mind, the cataclysmic upheaval taking place from the time he enters the university: formerly, his quiet, routine-bound life at home, school and the temple, where every convention of conduct was laid down for ever. Now, in the university, left to himself, he is free to do as he pleases. Surrounded by a totally different environment, he is caught in a confluence of the multiple cross-currents of new concepts, values and practices: there is an on-going battle within his psyche as to which values are to be accepted and, which are to be discarded; it may readily be realised that this is not anything new; it always happens when an individual transfers from a group with its own set of values and practices laid down, to another with a different set of values, the adjustment before final causing some amount integration, of inconvenience to the individual. In such situations, the tendency, more often than not, is for the new values and practices to supersede the old of the old values thrown into the melting-pot, under the fires of new influences, new beliefs and values, will be forged.

Colourful personality

The new influences laying seige upon Jinadasa's mind now, are derived from the multiplicity of Personalities, their word, thought and practices who surround him at the university and his new boarding house at Bambalapitiya, to which he has now shifted, unknown to his mother and Kalutara aiya, who had found for him the earlier boarding house at Mt. Lavinia.

His new boarding house is run by a Burgher woman, reputedly, of a shady character. Here, he comes under the strong influence of a fellow boarder, Weerasekera, popularly known among the other boarders as 'Uncle' Weerasekera, a colourful personality, with his wide and variegated experiences, who had seen something of the world; a confirmed bachelor, the influence of his views on life and love, of men and women, more so of women, on the juvenile mind of Jinadasa was tremendous; he had loved, in all its seriousness, a woman, and lost and now he has turned into a misogynist and a synic in his attitude to life.

SG introduces to the reader several characters, both men and women though not unique for, their prototypes can be found in any society, yet each of them is marked out as a different individual by his ideosyncracies of thought and conduct. It needs no saying that this enhances the stature of the book as a portrayal if true human society: SG's men and women come not only from the village homes and the temple, but also from the streets, the tavern and the brothel: for instance, the beggar women huddled against a wall on the Bambalapitiya pavement, as SG points out is a case of what happens to women when beauty and poverty combine. Such types transcend both time and place.

In the story of Jinadase's transformation, the 'Lion House' of Galle Road, in the late forties and the early fifties of the last century, plays an important part. At this point, if a brief digression may be allowed, creative literature with this period as its backdrop, whether it be Sinhala or English, features the 'Lion House' as a focal point for university students to fore gather, where the collective influence of diverse views, social, cultural or academic, goes along way to build the personalities of the university students as they go out into the world from where they carry lasting impressions gathered in those formative years.

The role that the 'Lion House' has played in the impressionable minds of University students of the time, seems to be a fertile ground to spawn a research study for a student of sociology, preferably a contemporary alumnus of the Colombo University for much authentic information lies scattered in numerous books and journals by students of that time.

Traditional systems

Away from their homes and potential supervision, cut off from the sestraints exercised by traditional systems of values, and continually exposed to the winds of change from their present surroundings, the freshers as the callow youths that they are infact, take these new influences like a potent wine that has gone into their head. It is the time their old values, beliefs, facts foibles, take a severe beating and, at the end of their 3-5 years of life in this crucible of change, it is inevitable that the chrysalis would have turned into an image, a totally different creature.

But the re-orientation of Janadasa's for me it is not possible without a total repture with his past; the childhood discipline he had acquired at home, his rural background and in the temple; the restrictive set up in him must now be demolished, more so, his mother's overidling dominance. Rightly enough, it was at this time that Jinadasa's friends found him reading D.H. Lawrence's "Sons and lover's"! Jinadasa soon becomes a rebel against authority, from which over quarter it came whether it was from his mother, priest, friends or relatives. What SG says through his protagonist about love, woman and sex, is important for, it opens a window, as it were, to understand their significance to men and women understood so differently by each in their many facets and dimensions. It all shown how complex these matters can be, more so to a developing mind like Jinadasa's: how confusing it is to judge what is right and wrong in sexual morality; how difficult it is to pronounce judgement on guilt or innocence in sexual conduct.

It is not known for what particular merits in the work, the judges decided to award the Don Pedrik Prize for SG's Sinhala book, 'Hevanella' when they did so. They may be different to those I have found in it. However that may be, to this writer's mind this book presents a serious comment on a matter that has always been a primary concern of the human mind, sexual morality in organised, civilised human society. All in all, what can be stated is that SG propounds here, in all seriousness a new sexual morality, which, it may be stated right away, is certainly, not the conventional thinking on the subject. The book is important for another reason; it discusses certain factors that have always guided human conduct, more so, in man's relations with his fellow beings, individually and, collectively as society; these, such as religion, sex, moral conduct and the other eternal verities of life, involving human relations once, economic concerns have been looked after.

Controversies

When SG creates a character like Jayaratne, for whom nothing is sacred he in fact, highlights the controversies going on, on matters referred to earlier. Readers have to remember that Jayaratne plays the role of mentor to Jinadasa. As the story unfolds the watching image of Jinadasa being built by SG, readers realise how, under the influence of men like Jayaratne, among the numerous other winds he is caught in, Jinadasa rapidly loses his pre-university identity that of the obedient son disciplined by his mother, the village temple and the traditional Sinhala Buddhist values. There is now a pitched battle going on between the old entrenched forces and the new, in his mind.

In a piece of rare literary excellence, SG makes a veritable psychoanalytical study of Jinadasa's mind, the conscious and the sub-conscious: its workings under the overwhelming pressures generated by his love for his girlfriend, Kanthi. His studies, lectures, books, exams, the latter looming ahead, are all gone to the limbo of forgotten things! His love for this woman is nothing less than an enslavement. SC makes a masterly exposition of the illiad of Jinadasa's woes on account of this infatuation, its ecstasy and the agony. His good friend, Wijeypala, in a stormy session of 'Counselling', convinces Jinadasa of the palpable folly of his conduct, and of the evils of his bouts of intemperate boozing. Jinadasa now makes a honest attempt at returning to virtue.

In the book this episode takes up one whole section (Chapters are not marked in this book) i.e. pp. 131-143, for SG to document it, in a meticulous and painstaking narrative.

After this, slowly, order and discipline seem to return to Jinadasa's life, tearing off the previous month's page in the calendar, which he had apparently not seen hitherto, is symbolic of this change over to a new leaf. While dealing with this section, a word may not be out of place here, on the distinctive character of this genre of writing and, of the entire book, in general, that, there is little or negligible 'action' in this book.

On the other hand, there is a continual dialogue documented as going on, in the hero's mind, a ceaseless, running debate with himself. The present writer is reminded of Marcel Proust's renowned work of this genre, "Remembrance of Past Things": Proust is a master at this genre of writing: so much so, that one critic has said, while one part of Proust's mind speaks, another part contradicts it and, another part stands apart and comments on the on-going debate!

Moral strength

Unfortunately, this change on the part of Jinadasa is not complete, he lacks the moral strength to go ahead with it, falters and returns to the mire of his former abuses, an unconscionsable wave of guilt/sin, begins to gnaw at his mind. He gusseses why on remembering the admonitions of his mother which he has now transgressed. As SG says:

".....his old fears begin to raise their heads, when he goes to bed these conflicting ideas come alive in Jinadasa's mind." ---P.173.

On finishing reading this book, if the reader makes a retrospective survey of events from the beginning, he would realise, he had been following the trail of the agonised soul of a young man caught in the ebb and flow of a resurging sense of guilt, real and even imagined, in his effort to reach resolution out of the choas seething in his mind in a conflict of forces between the taboo-ridden traditional, and the sophisticated, neo-urban systems of values. This battle goes on until, much against his will, he yields to the last temptation in a Maradana brothel! Here as he opens the door of the prostitute he finds, his mother or, may be her memory, has followed him! he turns back and like a maniac flees along the pavement of Maradana, still relentlessly followed by the Shadow' of his mother's memory. SG's story concludes with that horrendous nightmare overwhelming the tortured soul of Jinadasa.

Now, a brief word about Ms. Hemamali Gunasinghe's translation. She conveys, not merely the transfer to the new medium (English), the Sinhala text of the original work, she also captures the spirit of the first author's intimate nuances of thought and their connotations: nothing of the original is left out. Her verbal dexterity is quite equal to the challenge before her, it is forceful if somewhat boisterous may be when the need demands, functional, if at times, unchaste, may be once again, when that is what is called for!

The present writer faithfully read the translators' 'Foreward' as well as Prof. Dharmadasa's 26-page essay, may be written as an Introduction, its first part apart, it is questionable as to how feasible it is to include a critical comment in it, Wouldn't it compromise another reader's independent judgement?

BOOK LAUNCH

Purushoththama

Udeni Sarathchandra's 3rd collection of poetry entitled Purushoththama will be launched at 2.00 p.m. on June 11 at the Town Hall Kurunegala. The keynote address will be delivered by Prof. Wimal Dissanayake and other speakers include W.A Abeysinghe and Sunil Govinnage.

Arthur Raju Saha Raja Sabhawa

Lalith Heengama's Arthur Raju Saha Raja Sabhava was launched at Dayawansa Jayakody Bookshop, Colombo 10 on May 31.

Arthur Raju Saha Raja Sabhava is the Sinhala translation of the popular English novel The Story of King Arthur and his Knights.

The book is published by Dayawansa Jayakody publishers, Colombo 10.

Asirimath Siddhartha Gauthama Kumarayano

Damayanthi Jayakody's latest Buddhist book Asirimath Siddhartha Gauthama Kumarayano (Gauthama Buddha Charithaya - 2) will be launched at All Ceylon Buddhist Congress auditorium, Colombo 7 on June 8 at 4 p.m.

Damayanthi Jayakody is the author of several other books including Ape Buduhamuduruvo.

The book will be formally handed over to Ven. Kiribathgoda Gnanananda Thera.

The Thera will also deliver a Buddhist talk on this occasion. Asirimath Siddhartha Gauthama Kumarayano is a Dayawansa Jayakody publication.