Musings:

The great monarch and his son, ancient Socialists?

by Padma Edirisinghe

The past few weeks I lived in 'Ancient Lanka', of course via a book. The two foremost characters I met there were a great monarch and his son. The monarch had been produced by another regal character and a princess who had braved the ocean from the kingdom of Kelaniya to a southern sea port to appease an enraged water devil who in modern day parlance has been baptized as tsunami. Background time goes down to the pre-Xtian era, the 2nd century BC, to be exact.

Though I am tempted to dish out all the entrancing facts I read, especially the anecdotes regarding the 10 great giants, dubbed the Dasa Maha Yodhayas, that the warrior king's father had identified for future battle to entrench Lanka's sovereignty, I will confine myself to the titled duo and their aspirations to democratic living, if one may call that.

Riot

Is my imagination running riot? No. They actually lived it. Why did Gemunu choose far off Kotmale in Malaya rata for his hide and seek game? The standard answer cropping from school desks would be simply that he was fleeing from his pater's wrath after gifting him with women's clothing for the former's reluctance to fight the enemy.

But I perceived a stronger reason, perhaps fuelling the earlier alibi. It was because he was fed up with the flamboyant frills of court living.

He knew that he would one day inherit the Ruhuna kingdom, despite the prospective onslaughts from invaders in the north. And he wished to avail himself of the intervening time to savour the taste of democratic living.

In Kotmale terrain, he mixed easily with the rugged farmers, the farm hands, the loyal females whose main duty was feeding the husbands and sons who toiled in the green gold fields, further, with the smiths who turned the metals found on the outlying hills to weapons that would be brandished by warriors of mettle and might.

Romance

His best pal turned out to be the old kiri-amma who almost magically created a milk rice feast for the prince on his first arrival in the village. And he thought nothing amiss of embarking on a romance with one of the two village lasses, daughters of Uru Pelessa Gamarala and going on to marry her and beget a son too.

Outrageous conduct for a royal prince, you would say. Breaking tradition he lived in the roughly turned out habitat of his father-in-law even before marriage where a front-room was allotted to him, mostly to sleep.

However he was never in, during daytime. Either he would be chasing behind the mud-sodden buffaloes or help in building an anicut or preparing a new field for harvesting or even training the kids embedded in the valleys of Malaya mountains in martial arts. He really did enjoy his freedom to do what he relished, unfettered by Court etiquette. And nothing negative on the agenda, but always positive.

Sometimes itinerant traders plying their ware from the north to the south and from east to west will bring in sensational news about the goings-on at Ruhuna palace. First, the focus was on the marriage of the main king to a princess who landed there from a distant port on the western coast, then on the prince born out of their union who as a youth had suddenly disappeared after a squabble with his father.

Guessed

That he was there, amidst them, no one ever guessed. But seeing him, of majestic bearing and ways they would tell each other, that he really looks a prince. Sometimes they would tell the prince himself of the dramatic story.

"Hiddalaya! (He was called so in the village). Did you hear the latest news from the King's city of Ruhuna?"

"No. I did not." But he was the target of this search and was he found, that would make the royal's mother's face radiant. Till then she was no different from other mothers who had lost their sons in some calamity or other such as war and was perpetually sobbing.

For 18 years Gemunu lived this life in happy commune with nature, the gorgeous Malaya mountains rising above and watching all this drama.

He never yearned for his princely lifestyle spent in the gorgeous palace. Nor did he remember with nostalgia the gay life he had spent there. He now fed on Al hale rice and leaf mallun, the meal occasionally embellished with a jak fruit delicacy or a diyamas curry. If he wished to savour the rugged life of the villagers in his domain he now had the experience to the optimum. He would go back to the throne vacated by his father, fully equipped in Socialism and allied thinking patterns.

Better

How about his son? He fared even better. In fact, he reached the very extreme by going in for permanent residence in what is now disparagingly called a Rodee Kuppayama. The son first saw the gypsy damsel up on the lower bough of a tree picking flowers. The prince was struck by her beauty.

"Who are you? What is your name?"

"I am Asokamala."

Sensing the growing interest exhibited by Prince Saliya in her, she says, "You seem to be of noble birth, wearing a rich cloak and riding a horse too and a stranger to these surroundings. Please avoid me as I am of an outcast clan spurned by high society to which you seemingly belong.'

The socialist prince replies in this strain, according to historical narratives and legends.

"There are no high births and low births among humans. These are all man made fibs and serve as barriers by interested parties to create dissent in society and glorify their own status."

Finally the prince marries her and as a result he gets ostracized and eventually chased to the Rodee kuppayama, paying the ultimate price for his egalitarian ideas.