Threnody for Arisen Ahubudu

By Kalakeerthi EDWIN ARIYADASA

Ahubudu's policy was not to shine personally but to pave the way for others to shine.
He would fain be the stone that sharpened the wisdom of others.

- Prof. Nandadasa Kodagoda

Arisen Ahubudu's words were lyrical. In his behaviour and subdued demeanour, he was a living poem.

His presence was as appealing as a sonnet. His politeness and humility together - were an echoing song.

His total being was a reverberating ode to the land, to the language and to the nation. Given such a background, Arisen Ahubudu's passing, calls for a profound threnody.

To, those who knew Arisen Ahubudu intimately, he was a rare human product. To many who had only a public view of this person, he was material of legend. Arisen Ahubudu went about in his business of living, like a docile lion, ever ready to roar, if and when needed.

Of those living today, I must be the only individual who knew him over the longest period of time.

Circumstances made this possible.

He was born just a couple of years before I did. His birth place, Mudillagahawatta, in Koggala, Malalagama, is just a couple of kilometres away from my own home Unawatuna.

Hela Havula

Strangely enough, it was at Unawatuna, he had the office of his Hela Havula organisation, which earned name and fame for Arisen Ahubudu. This is not all. Arisen Ahubudu and I were both co-teachers at Mahinda College Galle, for a brief while.

The super-force that totally transformed Arisen Ahubudu, was the pervasive influence of the language revolution, ushered in by the personality and the philosophy of Munidasa Cumaratunga. Early in life, Arisen Ahubudu was involved with the thinking of the spell-binding guru Munidasa Cumaratunga.

Everywhere in human society, the rebellious streak is an irreducible component of the youth-mind.

The youthful revolutionary ardour, can travel many paths.

In Sri Lanka, in the youthful days of Arisen Ahubudu, this revolutionary fervour manifested itself in the form of a frenzied dedication to language reform.

In the cult of Hela Basa, (Pure Language) the High priest was Munidasa Cumaratunga. In the proliferating swarms of Cumaratunga's disciples, creativity flourished at an astonishing rate. Their output was massive.

In the early forties, the Hela Havula office in Unawatuna, was a veritable “Temple of language and culture.” Arisen Ahubudu resided there. It housed the family printing press as well. Young people were drawn to it. With all the objectivity I can master, I must aver, that, the widest spread Language Reform Movement in Sri Lanka, was unleashed by this Hela campaign.

The total dedication of the Hela enthusiasts to this revolution of language and culture, was borne out by the zeal with which the followers of the movement discarded their names and adopted new versions.

Reincarnation

Under the direction of guru Munidasa Cumaratunga, the youthful disciple altered his name who Arisen Ahubudu, from the original form Ariyasena Ashubodha. As I see it, this zest for name-change, was symbolic of a re-incarnation.

Of all the disciples of guru Munidasa Cumaratunga, the most prolific, was of course Arisen Ahubudu. He said his say in a vast variety of formats - plays, poems (epic and otherwise) short-stories, children's tales, controversies, message poems. Even at a simple domestic get-together, he would express his sentiments in a stanza or two. Poems, he has written for me, at personal meetings and at book-launches are numerous.

What is endlessly surprising is the quality of composition of even the simplest lines he penned. Impressive imagery came to him as a matter of course.

It is apt, at this point, to ramify into a personal note. When his Hela Havula flourished in the close vicinity of my home, many friends of mine came under its spell. Anadapiya Kudathihi (George Kudachchi in pre-Hela days) Reggie Weeraman are two among them.

Sacred quality

From early on, I held the view that altering language usage artificially was not the right thing to do. The aura of associations that accumulate around words, over long years of use, acquires a sacred quality. Harming that sanctity, by introducing neologisms arbitrarily to my mind, was a cultural and linguistic violence.

Though I was not part of the main Hela Movement, due to that entrenched conviction within me, I benefited vastly from Arisen Ahubudu's Hela presume in Unawatuna. I studied notes by guru Cumaratunga, even more profoundly than his devoted disciples, as I was keen to be properly equipped for the youthful polemical encounters we constantly held, on issues of language and culture. In later years I came to admire Arisen Ahubudu, for his unswerving loyalty to the Hela cause. While others deserted the movement, he remained as firm as ever. His contribution to Sinhala literature, is of mythical proportions.

With the passage of time, Arisen Ahubudu developed a passion for all that is indigenous. He held the view that most linguistic usages and age-old cultural practices originated in Sri Lanka, and spread abroad, through a process of cultural diffusion, which he strongly believed in.

Arisen Ahubudu survives in Sri Lanka, in yet another unparalleled manner. He has named more than 10,000 persons and a large number of institutions and enterprises.

These will contribute vastly towards this perpetuate of his memory.

The Arisen Ahubudu Foundation must set about the task of bringing out a comprehensive collection of his works.

It will proclaim the legendary quality of this gentle human being.