From Silva to Walisinghe Harischandra

by Padma EDIRISINGHE

It was years ago I read the biography of Walisinghe Harischandra. It was an out of proportion book with a big head tapering towards a thinning end. The big head included a long narrative of the names of the Buddhist savant from Christian Negombo. The author states that Harischandra was a later acquired name, for he was born into a Silva family of the coastal town, probably Angurukaramulla, a suburb.

The name change was almost inevitable for he eventually joined the bandwagon of those who began to take up what seemed a rapidly losing Buddhist cause bulldozed by the church, half-brother of the colonial regime with an equally proselytising zeal. He finally ended up the resuscitator of Anuradhapura.

Hectic work

A visit to the pooja city of Anuradhapura had just agonised the young man who after much hectic work did in his 30s. “A wise man’s life of 30 years is worth 100 years of a fool’s life” – Anon. The sacred and historical city, capital of Lanka for 1000 plus years, hence had with passing time and sheer negligence got drawn into the chute of the earth and lost in the wilds like the kingdom of Kotte.

He could not seriously attend to unearth the city under the foreign name of Silva. In fact, the name had seeped here from Portugal, considered the arch enemy of Buddhism in the context of the cruel events of the 16th and 17th centuries.

Today the great man stands tall in the city, in the form of a statue put up by grateful Buddhists. Back to his name change. Following Anagarika Dharmapala who changed his name from Davith to Dharmapala, Walisinghe Harischandra discarded his former name - Silva. However, the biographer extols the original name Silva, rationalising that the name sprang from the “Sylvan copses of Portugal” and hence was not at all a derogatory name. He goes on to recount how the Portuguese had a habit of coining names from natural phenomena as rivers, gardens and waterfalls.

Now we will go on to another name, Perera which Portuguese name like the Silva outdoes in number the original country. It assumes various forms as Pereira used by Burghers of Sri Lanka. It has almost become an indigenous name so much so that in narratives, occurs this form, “This person, let us call him Perera, was a regular visitor to the village temple. “Town, bar” a Sinhala women’s weekly once carried a hilarious piece under the title, “Mrs. Silva in conversation with Mrs. Perera across the fence” – “watata udin Perera nonai Silva nonai.” I never missed it.

Now where am I? Let us get to the ferries or Feriras.

A drive along the the Colombo-Avissawella road is a voyage along a most picturesque landscape, the Kelani river gurgling and running a speedy race along trying to compete with the main road. Actually the old road to Kandy ran along the highway. Now boards greet your eyes, “Kosgama ferry.” “Hanwella ferry” and “Pugoda ferry.” They take me to a life by the Kelani, the boatmen and their boat songs and the women bathing in artless exposure. The construction of the Hanwella bridge was the death knell of the Hanwella ferry along with the ceasing of the haunting boat songs or Paru Kavi.

I was reminded of them recently when experiencing the pleasure of driving along the foothills of The Alps. Silvery streams of water gushed down the mighty hills and there came into view boards, Ferreira No. 1, Fereura No 2. I have by this time got used to the Euro custom of feminising certain phenomena. ‘Toiletta’ for toilet and ‘Europa’ for Europe. So, here is Ferry turning to Fereira. And my mind turning and twisting, I remembered the biography of Harischandra, where in its long introduction it describes the practice of Portugal to carve out names from nature. But this is still not Portugal yet a region veering towards at, somewhere in Italy.

These lands now all in a common Euro bond share many facets of civilisation including names. Earlier they were all a part of the Holy Roman Empire which according to cynics was neither Holy nor Roman. So, Fereira used for a ferry could be the origin of Perera who roams in 1000s on Lankan soil today. Just a bold surmise. Since the sound ‘F’ is not represented in the Sinhala script Perera takes over from Fereira is obvious.

The Free Encyclopaedia defines Fereira as a Portuguese or Galician surname with toponymical origins (origins connected to land).