By Rohana R. Wasala

 Don David Hewavitharne, who later became the famous Anagarika Dharmapala, was born in Colombo, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) on September 17, 1864. David Hewavitarne was at the beginning of Sri Lanka’s difficult transformation from a British monarchical colony to an independent sovereign republic in 1972. When the American theosophist, retired military officer, lawyer and journalist Henry Steel Olcott arrived in Colombo in May 1880, David was hardly sixteen (so would have been included among today’s youngest Gen Z’eers in the impossible event of his having been born 161 years later than he actually was, but would have been miles ahead of most of them in his awareness of the necessity of positive social change and reform in accordance with the country’s national genius). Steel Olcott catalysed the work of the native pioneers of the Buddhist revivalist movement like the prominent Buddhist prelate Mirisse Revata and scholar monk Hikkaduwe Siri Sumangala. In the contemporary environment of imperial subjugation and suppression, their exertions would have achieved nothing much without the American’s involvement. The English proficient young David assisted Olcott as his translator.

At this time of fast receding Dharmapala memories, I was moved to write this tribute to the great patriot, social reformer, and Buddhist missionary, by a casual insulting remark that a deputy minister of the current JVP/NPP government (a Colombo district MP) made about this revered national hero, during a recent YouTube chat program: the viciously ignorant minister belonging to the Millennial Generation (in his forties) said that Dharmapala made protesting noises against the well-to-do of the time because he envied them their comfortable lifestyle!

For the information of interested young Sri Lankans who may not know (for no fault of theirs) about Anagarika Dharmapala’s background, I’d like to quote the following paragraph from the brief biography of Anagarika Dharmapala  ‘FLAME IN DARKNESS’ (Triratna Grantha Mala, 1980) compiled by Ven. Sangharakshita, an Englishman, who edited the ‘Maha Bodhi’ journal of the Maha Bodhi Society of India founded by Anagarika Dharmapala, for fourteen years (presumably in 1940s and ’50s):

‘Among the few well-to-do families which, through all vicissitudes stood firmly and fearlessly on the side of their ancestral faith, was the Hewavitarne family of Matara in South Ceylon. Hewavitarne Dingiri Appuhamy, the first member of this family with whom we are concerned, belonged to the large and respected goigama or cultivator class. He had two sons, both of whom exhibited the same devotion to the Dharma as their father. One of them became a bhikshu known as Hittatiye Atthadassi Thera and occupied the incumbency of Hittatiya Rajamaha Vihara. His teacher, Mirisse Revata Thera, was fourth in pupillary succession from the Sangharaia Saranankara, the greatest name in eighteenth century Ceylon Buddhism. The other son, Don Carolis Hewavitarne migrated to Colombo, established there a furniture manufacturing business in the Pettah area, and married the daughter of a Colombo businessman, Andris Perera Dharmagunawardene, who had donated a piece of land at Maligakanda, erected on it the first Pirivena of Buddhist monastic college in Ceylon, and brought a monk from the remote village of Hikkaduwa to be its principal. Since then, the names of Vidyodaya Pirivena and Hikkaduwa Siri Sumangala Maha Nayaka Thera, have passed, inseparably united, into the history of world Buddhism. Through the halls of this great institution of Buddhist learning, unrivalled through the length and breadth  of Ceylon, have passed monks from Burma, Siam, India, Japan and China, and the memory of the great Buddhist scholar, mathematician and expert in comparative religion who for so many decades guided its destinies is revered wherever the Dharma taught in the Pali Scriptures is known.’ 

According to Ven. Sangharakshita, the young Don Carolis Hewavitarne and his wife Mallika desired a son, for different reasons, though. Mudliyar Hewavitarne wanted a son to inherit and continue his furniture business, but his wife equally seriously wished for a son who would become a bhikshu to advance the cause of Buddhism. They were overjoyed when David was born on the night of September 17, 1864, in the Pettah district of Colombo, where ‘the national religion and culture had fallen to the lowest pitch of degeneration, there came, as though to strike the evil at its very heart, the birth of Dharmapala like a vivid flash of lightning from a black and stormy sky.’

David grew up in a devoutly religious environment at home. ‘Without that early religious training’, writes Ven. Sangharakshita, ‘young David Hewavitarne might have grown up to wear top hat and trousers, speaking English to his family and Sinhalese to the servants, like thousands of his contemporaries, and Dharmapala, the Lion of Lanka, might never have been born, – and the greatness of the difference which such a calamity would have made to India, Buddhism, and the world, it is now impossible for us to gauge. It should never be forgotten that the piety of the old Sinhala type was the plinth and foundation of Dharmapal’s whole character.’

There were no Buddhist places of worship in Colombo at the time of David Hewavitarne’s birth. Devout Buddhists had to go to the Kelaniya Viharaya ten miles north of the city on full-moon poya days for their religious observances; the only other viharaya was at Ratmalana, seven miles south of Colombo, where the learned Buddhist monk Walane Nahimi (Chief Monk) lived. Neither were there any schools for the education of Buddhist children; there were only a few schools even for the secular education of the Sinhala speaking children; Buddhists’ attempts to establish schools for their children were discouraged on various pretexts. This is mentioned in Anagarika’s short autobiography in English MY LIFE STORY (edited and completed from the author’s diaries and other writings by Lakshman Jayawardane, Media Advisor, Maha Bodhi Society of Sri Lanka, in 2013). The deplorable situation of the Buddhist Sinhalese in the capital city of their native homeland from time time immemorial was indicative of the almost total sweeping away of the traditional Sinhalese Buddhist culture of the country by the successive tsunamis of Portuguese, Dutch and British invasions. Fortunately, today, this is not more than a bitter memory in our national consciousness, which, however, will remain indelible for a long time to come.

Let bygones be bygones, some people may murmur. True, generally we must. But certain past injustices in the form of racial and religious discrimination that we suffered under foreign occupation are worth remembering for properly appreciating the freedoms we Sri Lankans of diverse ethnicities, religions, and cultures enjoy today based on the principle of equality in this common homeland of ours; recalling the sordid iniquities we were subjected to by foreign intruders, and the commemoration of the visionary leaders who made emancipation from them a reality, are as cogently necessary for preventing new forms of barbarism from destroying our freedom and wellbeing again.

Under the earlier Dutch rulers, Buddhists had been compelled to declare themselves as Christians. The British enforced the same law for 70 years until they were compelled to abrogate it in 1884. Henry Steel Olcott mentioned above had it repealed by making representations to the Secretary of State for the Colonies in London on behalf of the Buddhists of Ceylon (Sri Lanka). Children born of Buddhist parents in Colombo at that time had to be taken to a Christian church for the minister there to record the names of the parents, and the dates of birth of the babies who were given Christian names by him. In territories under European occupation including Colombo most Sinhalese were given an English Christian name and a Portuguese surname if they were Catholic ‘converts’ or an English Christian name and a Sinhalese surname if they were ‘converted’ to Anglicanism. The majority of the Sinhalese in these areas were ashamed or afraid to own themselves to be Buddhists. Only those in the interior villages were relatively free to observe the religion of their forefathers without hindrance. Even there they were not free from the attacks of thousands of catechists who went about disparaging and disgracing the Buddhist faith for twenty rupees a month. Buddhist boys and girls were peremptorily taught Bible tracts and subliminally influenced to turn against their own religion.

In these bleak circumstances, the members of the Sangha also degenerated spiritually and intellectually. But there were a few notable exceptions who were devout, disciplined, and learned and who somehow managed to keep the dimly flickering flame of the Buddha Dhamma alive. It was some of these bhikkhus who did much to save the day for the Buddhists. In 1873, in response to hostile Christian activism against Buddhists in the form of proselytizing activities through the school system and the publication and distribution of books and pamphlets in the vernaculars among the non-Christians, one of these monks, Ven. Mohottiwatte/Migettuwatte Gunananda Thera, challenged the Christians to defend their faith at a debate. This challenge was accepted by the Christian clergy. The debate took place as arranged by mutual consent. It concluded with a decisive victory to the Buddhist monk. The debate received wide coverage in the press, and it was news of this that attracted here theosophists Colonel Olcott and Madame Blavatsky who were instrumental in initiating a long overdue re-awakening of Buddhist education in the country. The young David Hewavitarne was a lad of 15 when they arrived in Colombo in 1880, and he accompanied them as their translator on their travels across the island.

The imperialists made every attempt to teach the children to be ashamed of and disown their own race, religion, language, culture, and the colour of their skin. In the case of Don David Hewavitharne, he had to be admitted to the Pettah Roman Catholic School (also known as St Mary’s School), where he remained from age 6 to 10 years. The reason for this was that around 1870 the government closed all Buddhist Temple schools in the country because children attending these places of instruction were found by a government-appointed commission “to be too loyal to the traditions of old Ceylon” (which most probably meant that they were difficult to convert). After 1870, therefore, Sinhalese Buddhist children were denied an opportunity to receive any religious instruction in a school unless they got it at home. Chances of their getting any secular education were also few, because the government said that they had not enough money to establish schools for Sinhalese children. 

Meanwhile the Christian missionaries opened their schools throughout the island. Their real motives were candidly revealed later to David by Warden Miller of St Thomas’ College in Colombo which he attended after receiving his primary education in the Roman Catholic school mentioned above, when he told him: “We don’t come to teach you English, but we come to Ceylon to convert you”. His parents, meanwhile, saw to it that he had a normal Buddhist training at home, as already pointed out . Even as a child he knew that he owed no allegiance to the Christian religion. When the Catholic Bishop Hilarian Sillani visited the school, the young David was asked to kneel to kiss the ring on the clergyman’s finger as the other children were required to do; but he refused to obey that customary ritual.

Buddhist parents in Colombo at that time had no choice but to be content with either a government or a missionary school for their children. David’s parents chose the second for him. It was as a result of this that he was admitted, at age six, to the Pettah Roman Catholic School (St Mary’s School). At this school he became a favourite with the padres (fathers) because of his good behavior and his studious disposition. He used to take flowers from his father’s garden to the school to decorate the altars there on feast days and he also took part in the church services. The padres treated the Buddhist children kindly, but they also constantly ridiculed and insulted the Buddhist religion which was their proud heritage, saying such things as “Look at your mud image. You are worshipping clay”. Some impressionable young boys, thus humiliated, got converted to Christianity, but David never turned away from the Buddhist training he had had at home.

 After leaving St Mary’s School at ten, he passed through a number of other schools, first in a Sinhalese medium school learning Sinhalese and then in St Benedict’s Institute, submitting himself to further instruction in Christianity. In 1879, when he was 15, he found admission to ‘St. Thomas Collegiate’ (as he calls it), where he remained until 1883. It was during this time that David Hewavitharne came in touch with Buddhist bhikkhus (there were not many in Colombo then) and eventually with theosophists Colonel Olcott and Madame Blavatsky. 

David Hewavitharne had to leave St. Thomas’ College in 1883, even before passing the London Matriculation examination because his father didn’t want his son to go to a Christian school after the Catholic riots of March 1883: Some fanatical Catholics attacked a peaceful Buddhist procession that was passing St Lucia’s Church in Kotahena. Ven. Migettuwatte Thera who had taken part in the Panadura Debate was living at a temple in Kotahena at that time, but this had no connection with the incident.

Anagarika Dharmapala began his career of selfless service to his people and religion in these circumstances. He was not a Buddhist fanatic or a Sinhalese racist, but a patriot who bravely stood up to defend his people and their religion from religious fanatics and foreign racists. The Temperance Movement he initiated around the turn of the last century later metamorphosed into an eventually successful national agitation for independence drawing into its ranks many patriots that his example had inspired.