Remembering Munidasa Cumaratunga

A few days ago, the one hundred and twenty fifth birth anniversary of Munidasa Cumaratunga was celebrated. President Mahinda Rajapaksa graced the occasion, and Gunadasa Amarasekera commented on the importance and relevance of Cumaratunga’s thinking for us as we struggle with myriad complex issues.

He was a creative writer, grammarian, literary critic, scholar of language, editor of classical texts, a journalist and educationist - and he excelled in all these diverse fields of endeavour. He had a profound impact on the thought and imagination of his times, and continues do so.

There are so many aspects of Cumaratunga’s life and work that deserve critical analysis. In today’s column I wish to explore his approach to modernity. There is a fairly widespread, although in my judgment, a mistaken belief that he was mired in the past and did not move with the times. Nothing could be further from the truth. He was acutely aware of the problems of modernity; he was conscious of the power of modernity and the need to adapt to it without forfeiting our cultural legacies and resources.

Traditionalist

The notion that Munidasa Cumaratunga was an implacable traditionalist and that he was uninterested in recognising the present and steadfastly turned towards the past still haunts the imagination of many. However, it needs to be pointed out that facts as we know them do not support such a viewpoint. It is evident that he was deeply interested in change, innovation and questions of modernity. And as he rightly underlined in his poetry, a nation that is unable to think and imagine in novel ways and encourage innovation is invariable condemned to bondage and sterility. In his prefatory remarks to his supremely important work on grammar the Vyakarana Vivaranaya, he makes the following astute observation.

‘The Sinhala people, under the mistaken belief that they are embracing a supreme virtue, seem to cling to a vice. That is the propensity to honour an ancient viewpoint whether it is accurate or not. It is an insult to humanity to regard the ancientness as the sole criterion for honour. A virtue, even though it is modern, is a virtue. A vice, even if it is ancient, is a vice.’ Statements such as these challenge the widespread notion, especially among young readers, that Muniadasa Cumaratunga was unflinchingly attached to the past, that he was imprisoned in it, and was unable to confront the imperatives of modern society. His attitude to society, it must be emphasized, was shaped by his desire to confront modernity in its full complexity.

Attitude

There are numerous instances that serve to underscore the fact that Munidasa Cumaratunga was no blind venerator of the past. For example, his attitude to the highly esteemed classical Sinhala poem the Kavyashekaraya by the venerable Sri Rahula is reflective of his general attitude. He was unafraid to call the poet a plagiarist because he had lifted certain verses bodily from classical Sanskrit texts.

Ven. Sri Rahula was regarded as one of the greatest Sinhala poets of all time. Hence, Cumaratunga’s devastating critique of the author of the Kavyashekharaya generated a great deal debate and controversy; it paved the way for the famous kukavi vadaya, in which a number of leading scholars in the country chose to place themselves on either side of the argument and argued profusely the merits and demerits if this poem.

Munidasa Cumaratunga’s attitude to modernity has to be understood not only in relation to material realities but also in relation to deeper issues such as language and how best to understand its significance as a vital social practice. He was bold and imaginative in his approach to the understanding of the nature and uniqueness of the Sinhala language.

A careful study of his three books Sidat Sangara Vivaranaya, Kriya Vivaranaya and Vyakarana Vivaranaya should amply demonstrate this fact. The first book constitutes a critical interpretation of the Sinhala grammar composed in the thirteenth century. To be sure, it was a text held in the highest esteem by indigenous scholars at the time and Munidasa Cumaratunga was unafraid to challenge it and pint out its blind spots. This is indeed reflective of his modern frame of mind.

In his preface to the Sidat Sangara Vivaranaya, he says the following. ‘Sidat Sangarava is old, it was written by an eminent person; we learned our grammar from it. Some seem to think that to point out deficiencies in it is an act of betrayal.

Virtues

For those who believe that Sidat Sangarava is faultless, the last word on grammar, would find this interpretation unpalatable.’ This is not to suggest that he totally dismissed the work. Far from it. He was quick to recognise its virtues, while pointing out its defects, and argued that we can, up to a point, reconstruct a productive Sinhala grammar on the insights contained in this work.

These three texts of Cumaratunga that I have cited – Sidat Sangara Vivaranaya, Kriya Vivaranaya and Vyakarana Vivaranaya – demand our attention in part because they manifest a refreshingly modern frame of mind in relation to the analysis of language and grammar. Contrary to the preferences of the time, Cumaratunga sought to shine a light on the structure of language rather than etymology. In this regard, his work reminds us of pioneers of modern linguistics such as Leonard Bloomfield and Ferdinand de Saussure.

Moreover, he also recognised the importance of giving due weight the contemporary colloquial idiom. In addition, like many modern linguists, he sought to place great emphasis in syntax and syntactic analysis.

A point that Cumaratunga frequently emphasised, and one that we need to keep in mind, is that we need to construct a grammar based on the realities and distinctiveness of the Sinhala language rather than copy what is available in Sanskrit or Pali or European languages. He observed very cogently that, there could be so many other great languages in the world. Their grammars could be blemishless. In uncovering the Grammar of the Sinhala language, it isn’t any of these languages that we should focus on. Grammar is the law of language.

The grammar of each language is determined by the use of each language.’ The last statement, in particular, has almost a contemporary ring to it. What Cumaratunga is labouring to do here is to underscore a very important desideratum – each language possesses a unique structure and one has to uncover it patiently if one is to grasp the uniqueness of that language. In this important endeavour one has to, according to him, play very close attention to the specific usages that mark the language. As I stated earlier, these sentiment find a ready echo in modern thinking.

Grammar

It is my contention that Munidasa Cumaratunga’s perspective on the study of the Sinhala language is reflective of his modern frame of mind. As I stated earlier, it was his declared interest to fashion a grammar founded on the distinctive structure of the Sinhala language and that we should not blindly follow the grammar produced for other languages. He emphasised this point on numerous occasions; it is evident that he felt deeply about this.

For example, he once memorably remarked that,’ many Sinhala grammarians in order to fashion a grammar for our language have made use of grammar produced for other languages as a standard. The standard the adopted was Pali Sanskrit grammar. As they sought to adhere to that yardstick, these grammars had the effect of concealing the specific situation with regards to Sinhala language. Sidat Sangarava, and other works that followed, manifest this clearly.

He also remarked that, ‘here we made our language the standard….if there is a definite format in Sinhala, then whether it is present or absent in other important languages is no cause for hesitation. We see the format inherited by the Sinhala language as being superior however; for that reason we did not ignore those instances in foreign languages where affinities were to be detected..’ Pronouncements such as these bear testimony to the fact that Cumaratunga was keen to construct a grammar based on the distinguishing characteristics of the Sinhala language

The famous German scholar published an important book titled Sinhalese grammar. Munidasa Cumaratunga’s response to this work is reflective of his broader approach to language and grammar. He wrote a series of essays that were published in the journal Subasa. In them, he makes two central points. First, Geiger has been unable to appreciate the vitality of Sinhala as a living language. Second, he failed to recognise the distinctiveness of the Sinhala language. It can be argued that his strictures of the thirteenth century work the Sidat Sangarava and William Geiger’s book have their roots in the same vision that guides his approach to the Sinhala language.

Imprint

When we examine carefully Cumaratunga’s approach to language we realise that it bears the imprint of his independence of thinking which relates interestingly to his understanding of modernity. On the one hand, he was opposed to making use of, pressing into service, uncritically western models and paradigms.

On the other hand, he was deeply perturbed by some prominent scholars of the time to turn towards the classical Indian tradition without paying adequate attention to the obvious disparities that exist between Sinhala and these Indian languages, he made the case – quite convincingly in my view – that the local stamp of a language has to be given its due weight and that the nature and significance of a language has to be assessed on its own terms – not according to the dictates of imported yardsticks. He was opposed to inflating the western experience or the classical Indian experience into an infrangible universal norm.

It was Cumaratinga’s deeply held belief that we need to have a firm understanding of the presuppositions, guiding axioms, rationalities and cultural logics associated with any given linguistic tradition. He was keen to focus on the intellectual sovereignty of each tradition. In a sense, this was the burden of his argument against the content of the Sidat Sangarava and Geiger’s book.

If one wishes to summon support for this viewpoint one can do no better than invoke Kant’s notion of maturity. What he meant by this term was the capacity to rely on one’s own rationality, logics rather than be influenced by the power and authority of an outside source. In this regard, it is interesting to point out that the post-structuralist thinker Michel Foucault claimed that the notion of maturity as formulated by Kant was of great value in his own investigative work.

The attitude to tradition that Cumaratunga espoused is one we should study very carefully. He felt that it was our duty to explore the traditionality of a given tradition. This is indeed a line of inquiry that comports well with the work of modern thinkers such as Alasdair Macintyre. Macintyre once remarked that to those who inhabit a social and intellectual tradition functioning well, the facts of tradition which are the bases and presuppositions of their inquiries and activities may remain at the level of unexplored and unarticulated presuppositions.

He, therefore, stressed the need for us to examine the traditionality inherent in tradition. We are confronted with a paradox here; the apparently calm surface of tradition covers a hidden tension. What this underlines is the fact that there is a compelling need to investigate into the traditionality of tradition and bring to the surface the various conflicting discursive regimes that give rise to it.

Tradition

In this regard, we need to remind ourselves that Munidasa Cumaratunga saw the importance of discussions, debates, dialogues as a way of foregrounding what goes into the constitution of tradition. He was convinced of the fact that to understand a tradition fully one must probe into the traditionality of tradition, namely, what constitutes itself as gradation. This approach to tradition, it seems to me, is illustrative of Cumaratunga’s modern outlook.

Another important concept of Munidasa Cumaratunga, which is as significant as that of traditionality that I discussed in the earlier paragraph, is linguisticality. It was his considered judgment that in order to comprehend the full complexity of the relationship between tradition and linguistic identity – twin themes that engaged his interests deeply – we need to focus on the idea of linguisticality. This term, to be sure, is not one that Cumaratunga has used; no where in his writings is the actual term deployed. However, it seems to me that this term captures succinctly what he is seeking to accomplish.

This term, it seems to me, can be invoked productively to delineate the nature, the dynamics and functioning of any given language. In other words, although he did not employ this word in his writings, this idea finds articulation frequently in his analyses. By examining his scholarly works such as Sidat Sangara Vivaranaya, Kriya Vivaranaya and Vyakarana Vivaranaya, by paying close attention to the various classical texts he edited and their commentaries, by scrutinising the essays and articles that he wrote for journals newspapers such as Subasa and Lak Mini Pahana, we should be in a good position to understand the significance he attached to this idea of linguisticality.

When we pause to examine the idea of linguisticality that finds expression in Munidasa Cumaratunga’s writings, we need to pay close attention to the relationship between human experience and verbal expression as seen by him. He opens his well-known work titled Prabandhopadeshya with the following observation. ’Independence is humanity’s highest point of achievement. There is no other site better suited to display it than literary narratives.’

What this statement does is to summarise nicely the salience of autonomy and verbal articulation. It is only when one is able according to him, to write lucidly and with self-assurance that one is in a position to display this autonomy. He commented forcefully on the ability to communicate clearly. ‘However much one knows in terms of academic topics, if one is unable to express those thoughts clearly and attractively, one would remain a weakling in the world of knowledge.’

Munidasa Cumaratuna also examined the ways in which language shapes both personal and collective identity. This aspect is vitally connected to his notion of linguisticality. He focused on the disturbing peripheralisation of the Sinhala language under colonial times and the concomitant blind worship of English.

He was, to be sure, not opposed to the studying of English; he saw the value of it and he wrote at times in English on matters of great moment.

He recognised full well the importance of English as a window onto the wider world. What he was keen to establish was the need to avoid the peripheralisation of Sinhala and allow it to grow as a living contemporary language. Therefore, it is hardly surprising that in many of his essays he sought to underscore the importance of the relationship that existed between language and identity both individual and collective.

In discussing Cumaratunga’s approach to the idea of linguisticality, it is important that we consider the ways in which he highlighted the idea of a speech community. How social collectivities are formed on the basis of a distinct and commonly shared language, how language acts as a creative and nurturing force in a community, are facets of linguiticality that he was deeply interested in. The idea of a speech community has been disseminated by modern linguists such as Bloomfield and Hockett and Lyons for decades.

However, it seems to me that there is a difference in the approaches of Cumaratunga and these western scholars – the difference is that in the case of Cumaratunga he sought to introduce a normative and ethical dimension into his expositions of speech communities.

This is indeed consonant with his view that language is a moral force. To phrase it differently, Cumaratunga was not only interested in explaining how a speech community functions but was also keen to express his ideas on how it should function. These two questions, I am persuaded, leads to a third – how does a speech community emerge from a given tradition.

Hence it can be said that while Munidasa Cumaratinga’s views in a speech community bear some similarity to Western theorisations, they are also different in the way that an ethical imperative enters into them. He believed that language functions not only as a vehicle of communication but also as a moral force that aims to preserve, consolidate, reconstruct and re-inflect cultural values even gesturing towards transcendental ends.

Structures

Munidasa Cumaratunga was keen to fashion Sinhala into a dynamic language capable of capturing contemporary experiences and accommodating modern structures of feeling.

One aspect of this effort is reflected in the new words he and his followers put into circulation. These are a few of them: kamituva,(committee) rajaya (state), sarasaviya (university), hediya (nurse), veluma (volume), papadiya (bicycles),samuluva,(conference) viduhala (college), tapal anavuma (postal order)

These words have now become a part of our everyday linguistic repertoires. This capacity of innovation on the part of Cumaratunga reveals an important facet of his modern outlook, and one that invites sustained attention. Hence to portray him as one who was mired in the past is a viewpoint that is inconsistent with facts.

Munidasa Cumaratunga was fully aware of the need to create new terms in keeping with the times, for the Sinhala language to move with the times. Simultaneously, he was deeply conscious of the fact that we need to attain a reasonably good command of the Sinhala language and its structure before we venture into uncharted territories. For example, in an English article published in Helio he made the following observation. ‘Books on different branches of science have to be produced in Sinhalese. One with a scanty knowledge of Sinhalese is not competent to do this.

However eminent one’s knowledge of the subject, however great one’s proficiency in English, some people seem to think that it is the work of proper technical terms that is responsible for absence of books on new knowledge. Will a whole storehouse of shoes make a legless man walk? One must learn the Sinhalese language with its idiom and its grammar and be able to appreciate its genius before one thinks of writing in that language a book on an important subject.’

Issues

Comments such as these allow us useful points of entry into the thought-patterns and mind-set of Munidasa Cumaratunga as he grappled with the complex issues of language, identity, progress and modernisation. It is my contention that while he was deeply familiar with, and appreciative of, the Sinhala linguistic heritage, he was also driven by a desire to revitalise the language so that it would have the flexibility and resilience to meet head on contemporary needs. As a matter of fact, it is precisely this deep understanding of the history of the language that enabled him to engage issues of language and modernity so audaciously and imaginatively.

I started out by challenging the fairly widespread, although mistaken, notion that Munidasa Cumaratunga was a narrow traditionalist who failed to engage seriously the contours and imperatives of modernity. I chose language as the site for my comments – the very site that adversaries had chosen to demonstrate his supposedly tradition-bound outlook.

It seems to me that one can invoke productively the concept of symbolic realism formulated by the well-known sociologist Robert Bellah to give greater depth to the intentionalities of Cumaratunga. This concept serves to focus on the centrality of symbols and the significance of traditions as living realities that shape modernity.

Moreover, in a move that tends to support Cumaratunga’s ethical imperative that I alluded to, Bellah argued that symbols work to define the world, constitute social collectivities, produce cultural meaning, and pave the way for rooting human life in a transcendental sphere. It s interesting to recall that Cumaratunga’s newly formulated trinity was basa (language), rasa(nation) and desa (country).