{"id":106415,"date":"2020-09-08T15:39:37","date_gmt":"2020-09-08T22:39:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=106415"},"modified":"2020-09-08T15:39:37","modified_gmt":"2020-09-08T22:39:37","slug":"who-is-the-sun-king-raavana-or-prabhakaranmyth-making-is-a-past-time-of-both-sides-tamils-as-well-as-sinhalese","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/09\/08\/who-is-the-sun-king-raavana-or-prabhakaranmyth-making-is-a-past-time-of-both-sides-tamils-as-well-as-sinhalese\/","title":{"rendered":"Who is the Sun king, Raavana or Prabhakaran?Myth-making is a past time of both sides – Tamils as well as Sinhalese."},"content":{"rendered":"

Chandre Dharmawardana<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Tamil Nationalists are making their\nmyths, extending their history to ancient times<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and claiming that they were in Sri\nLanka (and even in Babylon and Egypt)  since the beginning of time, and\nthat Tamil language is the source of the ancient  Sumarian language.\nWigneswaran has captured the lime light recently, with such fairy tales. He\nloves the  publicity garnered from all this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some Sinhalese Nationalist groups\nare also undermining well-established  history and reviving old stories\n(the Ravana story) by giving them  a huge new  dimension. This\nis  driven by popular media and the search for a sense of grandeur. They\nmake claims to grandeur where the Sinhale<\/em> was the center of all\ncivilizations, with a history claimed to be  going back to even 30,000\nyears BCE (i.e., some 35 centuries before the Buddha!).  The Hela people\nare claimed to have  developed a highly advance civilization complete with\nairplanes, nuclear energy etc. Other Ravana supporters who are more\nmodest  put Ravana’s reign to some 4000 years BCE  and not 30,000\nBCE! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

All this started with people like\nRaepiyel Tennakoon, Areesen Ahubudu and the “Hela Hawluva” people\ninitially led by Kumaratunga Munidasa. He  attacked the great poet\nThotagamuwe Rahula as a plagiarist and a cheat. The hela Hawala people were\nagainst the presence of Sanskrit and other “foreign” words in\nsinhala, and wished to write only in pure Hela language.  I know quite a\nbit about it as my father was one of the protagonists in the ensuing literary\ndebate, with scholars like Sir Baron Jayatilleke, W. F. Gunawardena, and\nwriters like Martin Wickemasinghe and others also wading in against\nKumaratunga.    A  book on those literary debates (written by my\nfather  appeared posthumously, a decade  ago: Godage 2010 Kukavi\nVaada Satya Prakashanee<\/em>, by Anulasiri Dharmawardana).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 But the Hela Huvala \nprogram  was a low key  linguistic effort, compared to what we have\ntoday. Their “plot” has been snatched from them and highly amplified\nby modern  media savvy operators. A monk who is an SJP graduate, Ven. Manewa\nWimelaratne even claims to have an 8th century “pus-kola potha” \n(Ola Leaf book) that he refuses to show anyone! The ola leaf book is supposed\nto give details of another ancient text (presumably more ancient than the\nDeepawamsa etc) called the Vargapoornikaava<\/em> that no body had heard of up\ntill now. It is claimed to delineates the story of the Hela Vargaya<\/em>. The\nmonk  has written many books in Sinhala (that I have not read) and they\nare supposed to give intricate details of the royal lineage etc., of kings and\nqueens since very ancient times. Sad to say, the monk is said to have studied\nlingustics at the SJP university.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All Indo-Aryan languages (including\nPali, Sanskrit) are claimed to be derived from Sinhalese by the Raavana cult.\nNot surprisingly, there are also a number of Buddhist monks who have identified\nthe Buddha’s birth place to  be  in Sri Lanka itself. A remarkable\nliterature has been woven with the standard buddhist history rejected as an\nanti-national conspiracy to hid the truth which claims that the various places\nmentioned in the life of the Buddha are all locations in Sri Lanka. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tele Drama programs, plays, novels\nand forth-coming films are minting money using the Raavana story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One novel tells of a gripping story\nof the US forces coming into destroy a Ravana Fortress up in the Mountains, and\nhow Gotabhaya Rajapaksa and his forces saved it or some thing like that (I\nhaven’t read the Sinhala novel). It is amazing that Ranil Wickremasignhe,\nPremadasa, “political obserevers of  the left, and of the well-funded\nNGOs that conduct ‘opinion polls”  failed to take account of the\npolitical dimension of the Raavana narrative pushed forward every week by even\nEnglish newspapers like the daily Mirror.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n


\nIndian tourists also have their own version of Ravana Myth and they travel to\nSri Lanka to visit places related to Ravana and Sita.  The tourist board\nis also supporting the Ravana myth and neglects the traditonal  Buddhist\nheritage.  The government, and some of the Nationalist\n“Chintanaya” people  also like to identify themselves with\nthis  surge in popularity of Raavana of the Soorya Wamasa as the new new\nRoayal lineage of Lanka. The University of Kelaniya that brought out various\ntypes of political “Chinthanaya” that rejects rational scientific\nmethodology,  also harboured  the “Hela Suvaya” vedakama\nwhich rejects western medicine and wish to establish a sinhala medical system\nbased on the revelations of Natha Vediya. Raavana cults are very popular with\nsuch chinthanaya groups, and a statue to the king Raavana has been erected\ncirca 2014. <\/p>\n\n\n\n


\nThe armed forces are often identified as a “Raavana Balaya”. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Exhibitions and big Tamashas \nto commemorate Ravana have also been held. Ravana has been the suibject\nof  an exhibition of paintings by Indumini Bandara titled  \u2018Indumini\nRavana\u2019 held in February 2011 in Colombo. The  Devram Vihara monk, Ven. Kolonnuwe\nSumangala (ex Member of Parliament) conducts an annual procession called the\n\u2018Maha Ravana Perahera\u2019.   Gotabhaya Rajapaksa came to its\ninauguration procession in 2013. The Daily Mirror newspaper used to publish\nevery week some material on the Raavana narrative. <\/p>\n\n\n\n


\nOne of my old students from Vidyodaya University from the 1970s era, a science\ngraduate had become a complete convert to the Ravana story <\/em>which he\nbelieved was essential to correcting Sri Lanka’s history once and for all, and\nbegan to sent me letters attacking “The traitor Mahanama<\/em><\/strong>“,\nand asking me to read various Ravana books, and support the nonsense, until we\ncut  off communication. Labeling individuals opposed to the program as\ntraitors is something that the ITAK and later the LTTE also did. The LTTE also\ndecided that the traitors should be executed!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apparently, some  government\nministry has even given “research funds”  to carry out\nexcavations to  do “archaeological research” to find out more\nabout the Raavana civilization that has been hidden or destroyed  by the\nMahaviharin monks already in the 6th century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This kind of going back to the past,\nwith claims that Indian sages like Pulasthi knew how to build Rockets that\ncould go to the Moon is being pushed by the Hinduthva enthusiasts of Prime\nMinister Moodi in India. They think that modern science is not needed, and they\nonly have to find what the Rishi’s said, and re-implement them, to recover the\npast glory of Bharatha.
\n  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, Wigneswaran is pushing\nthe Dravidasthan Myth (Greater Eelam that extends all the way from\nOntario  through Tamil Nadu to at least Malaysia). This surpasses \nthe Hiduthva myths of Modi and remains only second to China’s belt road\ninitiative. The Sri Lankan Raavana myth has captured the imagination of the\nSinhalese far more effectively than the Dravidasthan myth of the Trans National\nGovernment of Tamil Eelam (TGTE). Wigenswaran is merely one of the Jaffna\nrepresentatives of the TGTE. The Eelam myth had its  peak under\nPrabhakaran. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kmalaika Pieris has written about\nRamayana and Sri Lanka, where more material relevant this topic may be found:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
RAMAYANA AND SRI LANKA Part 3<\/a><\/blockquote>