{"id":118207,"date":"2021-09-16T16:25:44","date_gmt":"2021-09-16T23:25:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=118207"},"modified":"2021-09-16T16:25:44","modified_gmt":"2021-09-16T23:25:44","slug":"anagarika-dharmapala-admirer-of-queen-mab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/09\/16\/anagarika-dharmapala-admirer-of-queen-mab\/","title":{"rendered":"Anagarika Dharmapala: Admirer of \u2018Queen Mab\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Rohana R. Wasala<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

It may look\nunfashionable or even indecent to write about Anagarika Dharmapala (1864-1933)\nin these days of \u2018reconciliation\u2019 politics. But that is due to the deliberate\ndistortion of facts by vested interests. So I beg my readers\u2019 indulgence. The Anagarika\nhas been consistently misrepresented by antinationalists as a Sinhala\nsupremacist, a Buddhist fanatic, and a propagator of violent nationalism. But\nthe truth was otherwise; he was none of these. As anthropologist Gananath\nObesekera, professor emeritus, Princeton University, mentions in his \u2018The\nDoomed King\u2019 (2017), Dharmapala was the most passionate defender of Sri\nVikrama in colonial times\u2026\u201d; Sri Vikrama Rajasinghe had been demonised by the\nBritish in the interest of their imperial scheme to annex the Kandyan kingdom.\nTo the Anagarika, the last king of Lanka was a noble ruler and human being who\nwas betrayed by traitorous chiefs like Ahelepola disava (as he conceived of\nthem). He defended Sri Vikrama and implored Sinhala people to model themselves\non his life and history\u2026.\u201d (ibid.) Gananath says Dharmapala was indulging in\n\u2018hyper-glorification\u2019 of the last king. Perhaps, he was; but that doesn\u2019t\ninvalidate the latter\u2019s assessment of the king, whose non-Sinhala ethnicity did\nnot trouble him. At the same time, I don\u2019t share Gananath\u2019s criticism of\nDharmapala\u2019s alleged anti-Christian attitudes.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dharmapala was,\nfirst and foremost, an international Buddhist missionary, and only secondarily,\na Sinhala Buddhist national revivalist and social reformer. Sri Lankans (native\nCeylonese) were in urgent need of the brave leadership and guidance of such a heroic\nfigure at that time. He excelled in both roles. Anagarika Dharmapala assumed\nrobes as a Buddhist samanera at an advanced age in July 1931, after a very\nindustrious and productive life; he received the upasampada or higher\nordination (state of being a fully fledged Bhikkhu or Buddhist monk) under the\nname of Ven. Siri Devamitta Dhammapala, hardly four months before his death on\nApril 29, 1933. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As was the\nstandard practice among the well-to-do families in those colonial days, he\nreceived a good school education in the English medium. During all of his\nactive life, he mostly used English for communication. More than 75% of his\nwritings were in that language; he spoke English even more frequently in the\ncourse of his lifelong missionary work. No religious leader of the time,\nwhether Buddhist or non-Buddhist, devoted so much attention as he did to the\nneed for a good modern education for the young that included mastery of\nlanguages and science and technology (practical skills). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anagarika\nDharmapala said that he got an insight into Buddhism after reading Sir Edwin\nArnold\u2019s poem about the Buddha Light of Asia\u201d (1879). He treated the latter as\nhis teacher. Arnold received the Anagarika when he visited London. Dharmapala\nwas not an enemy of English or the English people; he was well disposed towards\nboth. But he was a vehement critic and opponent of British imperialism, which\nthough he didn\u2019t challenge politically, as he thought that it was not yet the\ntime for it; he wanted to have favourable relations with the existing imperial\ngovernment in order that he could get on with his global missionary work\nwithout any obstruction. His national endeavour was to lead his people towards\nfreedom from foreign rule through peaceful means, which motivated his work for\nstimulating social reform and bringing about the moral edification of the\nmasses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year marks\nthe 157th birth anniversary of the revered Anagarika Dharmapala, who made an\nimmense contribution towards the restoration of the national dignity and the\nreligious and cultural regeneration of the oppressed Sinhala Buddhists in the\nheyday of British imperialism in our country. He was born to a wealthy business\nfamily in Colombo exactly 157 years ago, that is, on 17th<\/sup> September 1864. The young\nDon David Hewavitharne, as he was named at birth, despite his strong dislike of\nBritish colonialist rule, had a passionate love of English poetry. He\nparticularly liked the poems of John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley, both\nassigned by literary critics and historians to the Romantic tradition of\nEnglish poetry. Ever since he discovered the latter\u2019s \u2018Queen Mab\u2019 in a book in\nhis uncle\u2019s library as a schoolboy, it had remained his favourite English poem.\nThe basis of his admiration of \u2018Queen Mab\u2019 is not difficult to find. He said about\nthe poem: I never ceased \u2026. .to love its lyric indignation against the\ntyrannies and injustices that man heaps on himself and its passion for\nindividual freedom\u201d (as quoted in \u2018Flame in Darkness \u2013 the Life and Sayings of\nAnagarika Dharmapala\u2019 by the English monk Maha Sthavira Sangharakshita, 1980).\nThere is no doubt that this specimen of Shelly\u2019s juvenilia (i.e. works done in\nhis youth) was nevertheless an important source of inspiration for the\nAnagarika in his life\u2019s work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What must have\nappealed to Don David Hewavitharne in \u2018Queen Mab\u2019 was obviously more than just\nthe polemical attack it mounts on the tyrannies and injustices\u201d that humans\ninflict on fellow humans. The poem embodies many of the radical ideas that\nShelley articulated in his works, and some of these such as his atheism, his\ncriticism of meat eating as a cause of vice, and the implicit advocacy of\nvegetarianism, his idea of death as something not to be feared, his\ncondemnation of political and religious tyranny, his socialist politics, his\nscientific attitude to human experience and the external world,  his\nbelief in the moral perfectibility of humanity, his nonviolence and antipathy\ntowards war, and his vision of social and political change through intellectual\ntransformation are sure to have struck a chord in the great patriot and\nBuddhist revivalist that the young David later became.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Queen Mab\u2019, a\nbook-length poem in nine parts, was written and privately distributed by Percy\nBysshe Shelley (1792-1822) in 1813. It was the poet\u2019s first work of genuine\nliterary merit. His decision to make it available to a select circle suggests\nthe type of audience he wanted to address: the target readers were of the same\npatrician (aristocratic) background as himself who had the time and the means\nto get an education, and the leisure to read and enjoy poetry; the mostly\nilliterate downtrodden masses whose welfare he actually had in mind and who\nstood to gain most from the revolutionary changes he envisioned were for the\nmost part outside of this circle; the Anagarika belonged to the same higher\nsocial class in this country as Shelley did in England.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Structurally,\n\u2018Queen Mab\u2019 is a fairy tale composed in nine cantos (main divisions). A fairy\nnamed Queen Mab comes down in her ethereal car to the sleeping Ianthe, a\nbeautiful young maiden. Leaving the girl in her deep slumber the fairy awakens\nher Soul or Spirit and invites it onboard and transports it to her celestial\nabode  at the uttermost edge of the universe. From that vantage point the\nSpirit (Ianthe\u2019s Soul) is given a view of the universe stretching below. The\nfairy promises the Spirit to reveal the state presumably, of humanity\u2019s past\nand present and the \u2018secrets of the future\u2019:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026\u2026..Spirit,\ncome!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is thine\nhigh reward: -the past shall rise;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thou shalt\nbehold the present; I will teach<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The secrets of\nthe future.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ianthe\u2019s Spirit\nis afforded a vision of the amazing immensity, wonder and harmony of the\nuniverse:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Above, below,\naround,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The circling\nsystems formed<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A wilderness\nof harmony;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each with\nundeviating aim,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In eloquent\nsilence, through the depths of space<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pursued its\nwondrous way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Humanity\u2019s past\nand present are both shown to be oppressive, unjust, and miserable; they are so\nnot due to man\u2019s inherited evil nature (as the priests tell them), but to the\nfact that<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kings, priests\nand statesmen blast the human flower<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even in its\ntender bud; their influence darts<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like subtle\npoison through the bloodless veins<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of desolate\nsociety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the evil\nsociety that characterizes the past and the present, innocent children are\ntrained to idolize soldiers and link manliness or machismo with violence in\ntheir very infancy:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026.The child,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ere he can\nlisp his mother\u2019s sacred name,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Swells with\nthe unnatural pride of crime, and lifts<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His baby-sword\neven in a hero\u2019s mood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So Shelley puts\nthese words in Queen Mab\u2019s mouth that ridicule what people are taught by the\npriests:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Let\npriest-led slaves cease to proclaim that man<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inherits vice\nand misery, when force<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And falsehood\nhang even o’er the cradled babe,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stifling with\nrudest grasp all natural good.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018The secrets of\nthe future\u2019 boil down to the utopian vision of a viciously hierarchical society\nbeing transformed into one where egalitarianism, justice, and love reign\nsupreme, bringing peace and happiness to all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the end of the\nvision, Ianthe opens her eyes to look at her lover Henry gazing on her waking,\nwith \u2018speechless love\u2019: (The word \u2018casement\u2019 in the last line means \u2018window\u2019)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Body and\nthe Soul united then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A gentle start\nconvulsed Ianthe\u2019s frame;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her veiny\neyelids quietly unclosed;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moveless\nawhile the dark blue orbs remained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She looked\naround in wonder, and beheld<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Henry, who\nkneeled in silence by her couch,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Watching her\nsleep with looks of speechless love,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the bright\nbeaming stars<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That through\nthe casement shone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Critics have\ncalled this poem a dream vision allegory, a fairy tale, a utopian daydream, a\nprotest- poem etc. The young David Hewavitharne might have identified \u2018Queen\nMab\u2019 as a protest-poem. In terms of its substance we may call it a\nphilosophical poem as well. In fact, the 1813 title of the poem was \u2018Queen Mab:\nA Philosophical Poem with Notes\u2019. Shelley was a \u2018philosopher\u2019 among the\nRomantics in the sense that while treating the usual \u2018Romantic\u2019 themes of\nbeauty, passion, power of the imagination, the natural goodness of humanity,\npolitical freedom etc which formed their characteristic subject matter, he\ndiscovered and articulated causal connections in them with rare precision and\nclarity. He was unique in this respect among his contemporaries, with the possible\nexception of  William Wordsworth (1770-1850) as critics have pointed out.\nReading \u2018Queen Mab\u2019 we feel that it qualifies for all the above labels. Though\nit is unselfconsciously melodramatic, coldly polemical, and crudely emotive in\nmuch of its versification and though he himself seemed years later to have had\nsecond thoughts about its estimation as a poem worthy of publishing for public\nconsumption when he came to know that a pirated edition of the poem had\nappeared in 1821 (which was just a year before his accidental death by\ndrowning), the \u2018philosophy\u2019 that he versifies in it is found to be as mature as\nit ever got in his case (considering the fact that he died at the young age of\n30). The poem has even been described as \u2018monumental\u2019 by more sympathetic, and\nin my opinion more rational-minded and more discerning, readers. Obviously,\nAnagarika Dharmapala was among this group of readers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Both\nShelley and Dharmapala were revolutionaries, though of different moulds. They\nagitated for liberty and morality in the political and socio-cultural spheres.\nThey had similar views about how to foster social and political reform (though\nthe political aspect was more subdued in the case of Dharmapala than in the\ncase of Shelley, a difference between the two that points to the Anagarika\u2019s\nrealistic, pragmatic approach as opposed to the dream-visionary impracticality\nof Shelley\u2019s): Shelley believed in the possibility of perfecting humanity by\nmoral means, which forms the nuclear theme of \u2018Queen Mab\u2019; the revolution he\nenvisaged appears to be something to be achieved in this way, but not through\narmed struggle (despite his probable allusion to the French Revolution in his\nsonnet \u2018England in 1819\u2019 suggested below, which probably was introduced merely\nfor rhetorical effect); the central theme of Canto IV of \u2018Queen Mab\u2019 is war:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u2018War is\nthe statesman\u2019s game, the priest\u2019s delight,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lawyer\u2019s\njest, the hired assassin\u2019s trade,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And to those\nroyal murderers whose mean thrones<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Are bought by\ncrimes of treachery and gore,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bread they\neat, the staff on which they lean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here the hired\nassassin\u2019s trade\u201d is soldiering; the army is meant. (The phrase is an\nillustration of the terseness of Shelley\u2019s poetic expression for which he is\nwell known. The interested readers may unravel its implications by themselves.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 As socially\nconscious young men in their different places and times Shelley and Dharmapala\nhad much in common. They shared the same reformist ambitions. Both, born into\nwealth and privilege, showed an unusual concern for the welfare of the poor and\nwere totally committed to the social uplift and moral refinement of the society\nincluding particularly the traditionally oppressed. Shelley\u2019s relentless\ncriticism of authoritarian institutions in his country is explicitly articulated\nin his sonnet \u2018England in 1819\u2019: The state of Shelley\u2019s England is such that\nthe king   is old, mad, blind, despised, and dying\u201d; the princes are the\ndregs of their dull race\u201d; the rulers who are unable to see, feel or know,\ncling like leeches to their country until they drop, blind in blood, without a\nblow\u201d; the ordinary English people are starved and stabbed in the untilled\nfields\u201d; the army is corrupt and inept; the laws tempt and slay\u201d; religion is\nChristless \u2013 Godless \u2013 a book sealed\u201d. (Won\u2019t this sound familiar to readers\nin many countries of the world even today?) All these (agents of tyrannous\nevil) Are graves, from which a glorious Phantom may \u2013 Burst to illumine our\ntempestuous day\u201d (This could be interpreted as an allusion to the French Revolution,\nin which a crucial event was the storming of the ancient fortress of the\nBastille  and the releasing of  the wretched prisoners there in 1789,\njust three years before his birth). Shelley\u2019s diatribes like these preceded, by\nabout three quarters of a century, the Anagarika\u2019s vehement denunciation of the\ndemoralizing British imperialism in our country. Just as Shelley rebelled\n(ideologically) against what he condemned as the tyranny of the king, priests\nand  statesmen (\u2018statesmen\u2019 not in its current dignified sense, but in the\nsense of mere \u2018politicians\u2019), Dharmapala adopted a defiant stance towards the\noccupying foreigners, errant Buddhist monks, and the Westernized local elite\nthat so slavishly pandered to  the interests of the colonial rulers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But he was not an\nirrational hater of everything Western. He admired the positive aspects of\nEuropean culture. He possessed a very good knowledge of the English language,\nwhich he used to write and edit many English publications in the pursuance of\nhis Buddhist revivalist propaganda. His love of English poetry was consistent\nwith the cosmopolitan Buddhist attitude towards what is admirable in other\ncultures. He criticized the tyranny and injustice of European colonialism, but\nhe obviously had a high regard for the Western nations\u2019 scientific and\ninventive genius. In return, he acted in compassion towards them according to\nhis own religious convictions. He wrote in his My Life Story\u201d already referred\nto:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is time\nthat Buddhists of Asia should give the Dhamma<\/em> to the people of Europe\nand America. Buddhism is for the scientifically cultured. The discoveries of\nmodern sciences are a help to understand the sublime Dhamma. <\/em>The\nmediaeval theology of ecclesiastical tussle may have satisfied the\nhalf-civilized consciousness of pre-scientific Europe and the paganized tribes\nof Europe of a barbarous age. Today the cultured races of Europe require a\nscientific psychology showing the greatness of human consciousness. The sublime\ndoctrine of the Lord Buddha is a perfect science based on transcendental\nwisdom. This Dhamma <\/em>should be freely given to the European races. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 The\nunacceptable reality of our current domestic and international predicament is\nexactly what the farsighted Anagarika acted to forestall, against many odds,\nwhich limited his success. Paradoxically and quite unfairly, leaders like him\nare held responsible for our present ethnic problems by some individuals. My\nopinion is that had Anagarika Dharmapala and other patriots that he inspired\nnot been there in that era and after, our plight today would have been worse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Rohana R. Wasala It may look unfashionable or even indecent to write about Anagarika Dharmapala (1864-1933) in these days of \u2018reconciliation\u2019 politics. But that is due to the deliberate distortion of facts by vested interests. So I beg my readers\u2019 indulgence. The Anagarika has been consistently misrepresented by antinationalists as a Sinhala supremacist, a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-118207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rohana-r-wasala"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118207","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=118207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118207\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}