{"id":102737,"date":"2020-05-23T16:12:07","date_gmt":"2020-05-23T23:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=102737"},"modified":"2020-05-23T16:12:07","modified_gmt":"2020-05-23T23:12:07","slug":"ven-ellawala-medhananda-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/05\/23\/ven-ellawala-medhananda-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"VEN. ELLAWALA MEDHANANDA Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA PIERIS<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

After ordination,\nVen. Medhananda continued to live at Sri Sumangalaramaya, Napawela, Getahatta.  That remains his permanent address today. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Medhananda first went\nthere,   the temple was very new. It had\nan image house but no image. Loku\nHamuduruwo, Ven. Soratha got a stone mason down from India and   had a Buddha statue made. He also\nconstructed a bodhighara. The villagers\nwere poor and could not support the temple very much. They sent dry rations as dane. When Ven. Soratha died, Medhananda was\nplaced in n charge of the temple. Ven.\nMedhananda developed the vihara. He provided an access road, boundary wall,\nlibrary. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ven. Soratha had started a daham\npasala in the temple in 1946. Medhananda taught there from the time he was a\nsamanera and after higher ordination he took complete charge of the daham\npasala. Medhananda came to Napawela\nevery week end, from where ever he was, to supervise the daham pasala.  the village had retired teachers and retired\nprincipals but they were not prepared to  \nteach in the daham pasala, complained Medhananda. Medhananda therefore\nturned to past students and appointed them as teachers. Even today the teachers\nare those he taught, said his biographer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Medhananda expanded the activities of\nthe daham pasala. He held an annual celebration, with an art exhibition. We\norganized daham pasal trips to places of importance in Sri Lanka. We took them\nto sites of archeological interest and asked them to write reports on them.  We did all this with great difficulty, said\nMedhananda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Medhananda was concerned about the\nfuture of those living in Napawela. Napawela residents could only hope to get\nemployment as drivers of vehicles, he said. Medhananda\ntried to improve their prospects. He started a free tuition class in the\ntemple, for \u2018school exams\u2019. This was probably for O levels, perhaps A level\ntoo.    Medhananda also established a\ncomputer training institute in the temple later on.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ven. Medhananda acquired Hendadola\nestate and distributed it to the villagers. This was probably during Land\nReform. The estate had 76 acres of untapped rubber. He told the new owners to\ncut and sell the trees. He had got a permit for this. Medhananda said he went\nto Hendadola every week to see whether they were cultivating the land. He had an EN 1956 Peugeot car, at the time,\nrecalled Medhananda. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

From\n1970 Medhananda has held a   well attended\nall day Nikini pinkama in August. For the first thirty years this pinkama was\nheld in Anuradhapura. Thereafter Medhananda moved it to other places, such as\nBuddhangala, Tissamaharama, Tantirimalai, Seruwila.    This pinkama continues today. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Ven. Ellawala Medhananda was a popular bana\npreacher. He received invitations to preach from all over the island.  In Anuradhapura after listening to a sermon\nfrom Medhananda, a member of the audience  \ndonated his house and land. Medhananda  \nused the donation to establish a temple, Ranasiharamaya, near Mawatagama.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Medhananda\u2018s personal needs as a bhikkhu\nwould have been minimal. Therefore his salary as teacher was spent on the\nschools he was teaching in. The\npirikara he received was used to help monks in poor temples. He found dayakas\nfor these temples, who were prepared to give monthly donations.   He also arranged pilgrimages to these\ntemples, to help boost   the income of\nthe temple.   Medhananda had once\nprovided robes and ata pirikara to all the viharas in Trincomalee and Vavuniya for\nKatina.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Medhananda has been involved in a wide range\nof activities, possibly far wider than most activist monks. Medhananda was head of\nNapawela Grameeya Nishpadana Mandalaya,  \nChairman of\nBalangoda Deaf and Blind school and advisor to Senior citizens Home,\nMallawapitiya, Kurunegala. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

During his time in the Department of\nEducation, he was involved in\nthe preparation of History text book for grades 3, 4, 5 and 9. He   helped prepared question papers for O level\nand A level, also to set standards for Pirivena exams. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Medhananda \u2018s archaeological research was recognized at  national , provincial  and district level. He was a member of\nAdvisory council, Department of Archeology, a  \nmember of Mahavamsa committee, and  \nmember of the At lipi Commission, Colombo.  He was Coordinator for  Attakata translations. He was President\nof Ratnapura District Cultural Board,  and the Ratnapura Archaeological committee. He\nwas  Research chairmen, Sabaragamu  itihasa Puravidya gavesana Ayathanaya.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ven. Medhananda  held positions in Sangha  organizations at local and national level. He\nwas a Member of the Buddha Sasana   Fund.\nHe was  a member of   Sabaragamu Maha Sangha Sabha, Ratnapura and Eheliyagoda  Sasanaraksaka bala mandalaya. He was secretary\nof  Rajya sansta Bauddha bala Mandalaya,\nBalangoda, and  of Trinikaya bhikshu bala\nmandalaya, Eheliyagoda. He was  also \nAdvisor to  Arugam bay Aukana  Committee and \nthe  Tarulengala Aranyaya,\nHulannuge.     <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ven. Medhananda  did not have very high opinion of the lay\nBuddhists. Those who help and support the Sangha  are very few, he said. We carry on as monks\nwith great difficulty, he lamented. Buddhists\ndo not value the Sangha. They do not help to develop  the temples. Very few think that they must\nprotect and preserve the Sangha. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Monks never fail to carry out their duties\nbut if they  see any  little lapse or mistake on our part,  the public insult and scold us. That is the\nreward the Sangha gets. That is why they leave robes.   And so the Sangha lose fine monks.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the public may have their\nreasons. A school teacher had refused to help Medhananda  when he was leaving to study at\nRatmalana.  She had said \u2018why bother, he\nwill leave robes, we need  not help him.\u2019\nMedhananda was not pleased, but I think that the teacher\u2019s view  cannot be dismissed.  ( continued) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA PIERIS After ordination, Ven. Medhananda continued to live at Sri Sumangalaramaya, Napawela, Getahatta.  That remains his permanent address today. When Medhananda first went there,   the temple was very new. It had an image house but no image. Loku Hamuduruwo, Ven. Soratha got a stone mason down from India and   had a Buddha statue made. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kamalika-pieris"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102737\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}