Nalin de Silva

 The most popular game among the pundits, not that they have contributed anything original to their subjects/fields/specialties, but they are somewhat read, so that they can quote from some book or the other or heard from somebody or other, who cannot think on their own, who are utterly incapable of going to the roots of a problem, but recognized among people like themselves as intellectuals, open minded, broad minded, balanced etc., is bashing and humiliating of Sinhala Buddhism, Sinhala Buddhists, Mahavamsa, Gemunu, etc.

It is the Buddhist culture that is being attacked, as being broad minded intellectuals they would not attack the Bududahama, Theravada or non Theravada that includes other Hinayana interpretations and Mahayana Bududahama. The pundits will not attack the Mahanayaka Theras in public, but the so called extremist Bhikkus are being attacked from left and right, meaning the political left and right.

 Christian convention

 There are some pundits who would call Mahavamsa, the fourth basket or “pitaka”, meaning that the Sinhala Buddhists have “catuspitaka” (four baskets) instead of “thripitaka” (three baskets). The Mahavamsa has been written apparently in the fifth century AD (this is Christian tradition and nobody questions the use of AD and BC in referring to years, and call it Christian domination, for the simple reason that the Christian culture and education have been made the dominant culture and system of knowledge.The Christian is the norm and all of us are forced to adopt the Christian convention. I use the word convention as a translation of the word “sammuthiya” and I am of the opinion that people belong to one or more conventions without realizing that some of the conventions which they belong to are contradictory) by a Mahavihara Bhikku (not necessarily a resident of Mahavihara, but a Bhikku who belonged to the Mahavihara tradition) named Ven. Mahanama Thera.

 Mahavamsa ends with the defeat of Mahasen who demolished the Mahavihara premises and sowed “undu”. Mahasen who could be considered as a Hela Buddhist was politically defeated by the Sinhala Buddhists meaning those who belonged to the Sinhala Buddhist culture. However, most of the qualities of Hela Buddhist culture were not defeated and were incorporated into the Sinhala Buddhist culture. Thus culturally Sinhala Buddhists are not very much different from the Hela Buddhists, except in one important character. It is the defense of Sinhala Buddhist culture and political structures from external aggressions, attacks, invasions etc.

 The Hela Buddhists were Yagu Kauranas, Nagas and others described in the Varigapurnikava and were sympathetic to Vijaya and company who came from Dambadiva. I am relying on what is stated in Varigapurnikava and Mahavamsa and available archeological evidence to create my story on “Sinhala history” (I have my story of Tamil speaking Muslim history in Sri Lanka, which does not go beyond 1300 AD. A Muslim friend accuses me of distorting Muslim history but he does not mind me “distorting” Sinhala history).

 Empirical phenomena

 When Physics is nothing but creation of stories such as the gravitational force to “explain” so called empirical phenomena such as falling of apples or coconuts to the ground and the motion of the earth round the sun (I do not know how empirical is this phenomenon – even empirical phenomena are nothing but stories created by “intellectuals”. Is there anybody in the world who could grasp a chair, for example, as a sensory perceptible object? If so could he/she mention which of the five sense organs is used to grasp the chair.), what can be said of storytelling in history?

 My story of Sinhala history does not agree completely with the story in Mahavamsa as I believe that Hela people were Buddhists even before the arrival of Arhant Mahinda Thera. The Helas were very tolerant of other cultures and religions not only as Hela Buddhists but even as pre Buddhists. There are nice stories on this quality of the Hela people described in the Varigapurnikava and Vijaya story described there shows that Vijaya and his men were pardoned by a lady identified as Kuveni in Mahavamsa.

 What Vijaya and others who came subsequently to this country from Dambadiva have contributed to the culture appears to be an aggressiveness which was not found in the Hela people. There had been Arabs who were Muslims as well non Muslims who had come before the 13th Century but who were non aggressive in Sri Lanka and were involved in trade. However, all these have changed after the thirteenth century when the Tamil speaking Muslims had come from present South India and had to face competition from the Portuguese who arrived with the emerging Christian culture in the beginning of the sixteenth century.

 If Hela people had continued to be in Heladiva, Serendip, or whatever, without the input of Vijaya culture (meaning the culture brought by Vijaya and others subsequently) as Hela Buddhists, without any conquerors coming from present South India, until the Portuguese came to the country Hela people would have been converted to become Christians (Catholics first) in no time. Then there would not have been any Sinhala (Hela) Buddhist bashing by the pundits no humiliation for the Sinhala (Hela) Buddhists as there would not have been any Sinhala (Hela) Buddhists to be humiliated.

 However, I know that I am expressing something that cannot be tested as there is no way to do an experiment to find out whether my story (hypothesis in the language of so called scientific method) is correct or not. Then there are so many stories in String Theory and Cosmology in Physics where people get Nobel Prizes without anybody being able to test their stories!

 Sinhala Buddhist culture

 The aggressiveness of Vijaya culture in the above sense has been reinforced by Mahvihara Bhikkus even before the days of Mahavamsa and when Deepavamsa was written circa fourth century little bit of aggressiveness had become part and parcel of the Sinhala Buddhist politics. However the culture of the Hela people which had been incorporated into the Sinhala Buddhist culture did not allow the Sinhala Buddhists to conquer other countries and spread their culture even though they were capable of doing so.

 However, what is interesting is that Ashokan Bududahama or Bududahama of the third council (Sangayana) introduced by Arhant Mahinda Thera contained the necessary ingredients for Sinhala Buddhism to be aggressive, with its Dhammavada and Kshanavada somewhat akin to “objective reality” of Western culture, and Manu laws and Brahman of Vedic culture.

The aggressiveness is connected with an almighty creator who is omniscient and objective reality follows from this though the realists may claim that they are Atheists and what not. What Ashokan Buddhism that evolved to be Sinhala Buddhism brought to Sinhala culture was that bit of aggressiveness that is associated with Dhammavada. However, Hela Buddhist culture with its relativities was tolerant and did not allow the Sinhala Buddhist culture to conquer other countries though they had the capabilities in terms of Naval facilities etc.

 However, that did not prevent Sinhala Buddhism as a culture to be spread to countries such as Myanmar, Thailand, Laos and Kampuchea and it is said Mahavamsa is treated with respect in some of these countries though not as “pitaka” as the pundits claim. If not for Mahavamsa Sinhala Buddhism would have disappeared under attacks from present day South India even before the Portuguese came here and Theravada would not have been spread to the countries mentioned above.

 This article is only an introduction to a series of articles I intend to write though may be under different titles. It is that limited aggressiveness that has made it possible to retain Sinhala Buddhism in the country, and what the pundits want is to see even that little aggressiveness disappears to allow the hegemonic Christian aggressiveness to dominate the culture and politics of the country.