By Rohana R. Wasala

Continued from June 21st, 2025

My rough English version of what General Ratnayake uttered in Sinhala does not at all do justice to his smart observation. I’ll explain this in a while. Let’s first take a look at the background to the event (namely, Charles Thomas’s ‘Sihinaya’ programme at the Padeniya Purana Rajamaha Viharaya held on May 17, 2025). The Mahanayake Thera’s letter mentioned above was sent to the Viharadhipati of the said Rajamaha Viharaya,  Ven. Katumuluwe Sumanaratana Thera, just over a month previously. Let’s wind back a little.

The Most Venerable Tibbatuwawe Sri Siddhartha Sumangala Thera, the Mahanayake of the Malwatte Chapter of the Siyam Maha Nikaya in Kandy, directed an official letter, a formal injunction, to Venerable Katumuluwe Sri Sumanaratana Nayake Thera of the Padeniya Purana Rajamaha Viharaya at Padeniya about this programme scheduled to be conducted there on May 17, 2025. Now, what did the Mahanayake Thera write to the chief incumbent of the Padeniya Purana Rajamaha Viharaya? The following is my  translation of the Mahanayake Thera’s letter dated April 15, 2025 (a photocopy of which was published in ‘ලංකා ලීඩර්’  Lanka Leader on May 27, 2025):

It has been brought to our notice that preparations are being made for a special programme to be conducted, in this holy month of Vesak that commemorates the Three Cardinal Events of the life of the Sammasambuddha, by a person named Charles Thomas at the Padeniya Purana Rajamaha Viharastanaya, which belongs to the Malwatte Chapter and which is at present under your incumbency. This person Charles Thomas has been accused of unethical conversion of Buddhists. We have also been made aware that the local Buddhist public have expressed strong displeasure at this event.

Therefore, we hereby notify you to call off the proposed programme, and to refrain, in the future, from organizing similar events with this person that are likely to cause public agitation.”

Signed/Sri Siddhartha Sumangala Thera 

The Mahanayake/Malwatte Chapter of the Siyam Maha Nikaya 

(Please note the use of the ‘royal We’ in this document, which is normal in official communications issued by the Mahanayake Thera; ‘We’ in this context is used not to show plurality, but authority.)  

The Mahanayake Thera issued another official letter suspending Katumuluwe Sumanarathana Thera as  Chief Judicial Sangha Nayake of Devamedi Hathpaththuwa on May 18, 2025 on learning that the latter had gone ahead with the scheduled event disobeying his explicit instructions. In the letter the Mahanayake stated the reasons for the particular decision (to suspend the Viharadhipathi as Chief Judicial Sangha Nayake) taken by the Karaka Sangha Sabha of the Maha Viharaya under his imprimatur:

First, although Sumanaratana Thera had claimed, by a letter to the Mahanayake Thera dated May 14, 2025, that all the Nayake monks of the region (of Devamedi Hathpaththuwa) had expressed their approval of the programme in question, they later informed the Mahanayake Thera that they had not been made aware of his letter of restraint (issued on April 15, 2025), implying that they would not have given their consent, had they known about it beforehand. Second, the Commissioner General of Buddhist Affairs had, by his letter dated May 16, 2025, in response to many complaints received from various sections of the Buddhist public, asked for a postponement of the programme. The Commissioner General had asked for this until a final decision could be taken, considering the fact that the programme could lead to social disharmony. And, finally, in spite of all these alerts, Katumuluwe Sumanaratana Thera had flouted established conventions in holding the event (on May 17). The Mahanayake Thera expressed strong displeasure at this and went on to suspend Sumanarathana Thera as the Chief Judicial Sangha Nayake of Devamedi Hathpaththuwa.  

Let’s with due respect and reverence leave it to the discretion of the Most Venerable Mahanayake Thera of the Siyam Maha Nikaya to take appropriate further action to deal with this obvious case of cynical  insubordination on the part of the said monk. 

Be that as it may, it is clear that the incumbent monk allowed the disputed event to be held in non-compliance with the Mahanayake Thera’s express instructions against doing so. General Daya Ratnayake’s words should be interpreted in that context. His implicit rejection of what he had been invited to add value to by his graceful presence, he conveyed to the audience through the undisguised sarcasm of: 

 ‘වන අලින් ගම වදින විට බල්ලන් බිරුවාට අලියා කලබල නොවී වගාව කා දමන බව’ ‘When wild elephants raid villages, dogs bark; but they eat up the crops unperturbed’,

where there is no explicit or implicit reference to the Mahanayake Thera. Dogs are small and weak opponents of the elephants, but they do their duty by warning off the elephants and alerting the villagers. The elephants are big and strong and are taking what is not theirs, which is wrong. The subversive forces suspected to be behind Charles Thomas who was, as alleged, hosted by the errant monk are powerful; they are doing what they want (that is, proselytisation/cultural subversion of the Buddhists in this instance) through their agent ignoring the divided and weakened opposition that he happens to encounter. 

It must be emphasized at this point that my criticism is actually directed at Katumuluwe Sumanarathana Thera, who should know better than to get a Catholic guest to preach to his Buddhist congregation consisting of his dayaka (donor) upasaka upasikas  on whose alms he sustains himself. I don’t at all think that mainstream Christians and Catholics have anything to do with what Charles Thomas is doing or that he is authorized by HH the Cardinal to perform at Buddhist Viharas. So, I sincerely assure them that I am not targeting the Christian/Catholic community or their spiritual leaders. Many a time have I wished the Mahanayake Theras took a leaf out of the Cardinal’s book in looking after the legitimate interests of monks and lay Buddhists by fearlessly asserting their spiritual authority before the rulers. 

To General Ratnayake I would like to say this: I am only offering my arbitrary interpretation of your words, as a personal opinion. You might have meant an entirely different thing; but I am sure it could be anything but defamatory of the Maha Sangha, least of all, of  the Mahanayake Theras.    

The currently operative Republican Constitution with its institution of the executive presidency was promulgated in 1978. However, it was based on the original Republican Constitution of 1972, according to which that post was only a nominal one (that is, the president was a figurehead) and the prime minister (an elected Member of Parliament) exercised executive power. An AI summary of the important Article 9 of the 1978 constitution (about the place given to Buddhism therein) reads as follows: ‘The State is mandated to protect and foster the Buddha Sasana (Buddhist teachings), while also ensuring the rights granted by Articles 10 and 14(1)(e) to all religions. These rights include freedom of thought, conscience, and religion, ensuring the protection of other religious beliefs alongside Buddhism.’ 

However, the literal translation of Buddha Sasana as ‘Buddhist teachings’ does not adequately match how the term ‘Buddha Sasana’ is actually interpreted in the Constitution, where it encompasses not only the Buddhist ‘religion’ (Buddhana sasanam = teaching of the Buddhas), but also everything material and institutional that is vitally associated with it like Buddhist shrines, monasteries, pirivenas (bhikkhu educational centres), Buddha images, stupas, Bodhi trees, Buddhist archaeological sites, and the rest. To safeguard the Buddha’s teachings, those objects and institutions must be protected, too. The problem of the increasingly threatened state of the Buddha Sasanaya (especially since 2015 to date) remains to be addressed. Such activities as encroachment on the Buddhist religious space in the form of unethical or coerced conversions, building unwanted prayer halls in Buddhist majority places, need to be stopped peacefully.

 What was witnessed at Padeniya Purana Rajamaha Viharaya on May 17, 2025 was an instance of the spirit of Article 9 (its basic purpose) being violated. Even more brazenly intrusive Jerome Fernando’s activities belong to the same category, and are not likely to make for peaceful coexistence or mutually beneficial interactions between Buddhists and Christians/Catholics, the major reason for this being the fundamental differences between Buddhism and Christianity in terms of their doctrines, spiritual concepts and practices. Buddhists may find proselytising irritating at best, and  aggressive and discriminatory at worst. The same can be said about Hindus, who are similarly vulnerable to coercive conversion schemes. Both groups face the problem of proselytisation. 

But isn’t proselytisation of ‘infidels’ a religious duty of the Christian faithful? This 

is paralleled by the principle of da’wah (inviting non-Muslims to Islam) among Muslims.I think that both these concepts come within the purview of freedom of religion enshrined in the Constitution. Even this can be easily accommodated in a Buddhist, as well as Hindu, religious environment if the approach adopted is non-coercive, non-aggressive, peaceful, and most important, based on rational conviction. It should also be recognised that Hinduism and Buddhism which are quasi-religions are not protected by such intrinsic safety devices used by real religions as apostasy and blasphemy laws.  

 Having said that, I for one feel that it is no longer realistic for the Sinhalese Buddhist majority community to look to the government of the day for protecting the Buddha Sasanaya under the prevailing circumstances dominated by highly politicised fundamentalist religious ideologies which are at loggerheads with each other. That heavy responsibility must be borne by the ‘sivvanak pirisa’  (the fourfold community of bhikkhu bhikshuni upasaka upasika/male and female members of the Buddhist clergy and laity respectively). Given that Buddhism is a non-religious religion (a quasi religion) that is most compatible with the principles of secular democratic governance, a well run secular democracy is the best guarantor of the protection of the Buddha Sasanaya. 

But there is a serious challenge before them. An inner collapse has been triggered in the Buddhist religious cultural establishment and within the Buddhist community (sivvanak pirisa) due to external pressures from diverse sources: religious, political, economic, social, etc. This is compounded by entrenched corruption within monastic walls in some cases including the palladium of Buddhism in Sri Lanka, the Sri Dalada Maligawa, the Temple of the Tooth Relic. (This is a closely related subject that needs to be dealt with in a separate future essay.)

Let me conclude this present opinion piece with a suggestion drawn from Episode 119 of Lanka Leaders YouTube Channel uploaded a little over a month ago by Abheetha Edirisinghe, a YouTuber who produces well researched videos about subjects of national interest, concerning so-called Brother Charles Thomas’s ‘Sihinaya’ programme held at the Padeniya Purana Rajamaha Viharaya on May 17. According to him, on a previous occasion, the Ministry of Education was reported to have officially asked teachers and schoolchildren to participate in a ‘Sihinaya’ programme that Brother Charles was conducting in a school in Dompe, which suggested that it received ministerial patronage. Edirisinghe feels that Katumuluwe Sumanarathana Thera could have acted the way he did under similar government pressure, in which case, merely suspending Katumuluwe Sumanarathana Thera as Adhikarana Sangha Nayake would not settle the issue. He appeals that the Mahanaya Thera hold a thorough investigation to find out the real nature of the motivation behind the monk’s questionable conduct in hosting that unauthorised event.

Concluded