{"id":118644,"date":"2021-09-27T17:06:31","date_gmt":"2021-09-28T00:06:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=118644"},"modified":"2021-09-27T17:06:31","modified_gmt":"2021-09-28T00:06:31","slug":"the-flag-and-the-cross-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/09\/27\/the-flag-and-the-cross-2\/","title":{"rendered":"THE FLAG AND THE CROSS"},"content":{"rendered":"

by S.A. Wijayatilake<\/strong> (former Principal, Ananda College) *<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Three and a half centuries of foreign aggression and occupation – at\nfirst partial, but since 1815 complete – of the land had not only demoralized\nand emasculated the Sinhalese people generally, but had adversely affected the\nposition of Buddhism in this Island in particular. The Portuguese, whose\narrival in Ceylon synchronized with the activities of the Counter-Reformation\nin Europe, believed that the Flag follows Trade and the Cross follows the Flag.\nIn the words of Albuquerque, The new heroes of Portugal are not her soldiers\nor sailors, but her missionaries. These were the men who made their way into\nthe interior of India and who penetrated the furthest East. China, Japan, and\neven Tibet witnessed their presence and heard their preaching\u201d. (Quoted by C.\nM. Fernando, M. a., LL.M. (Cantab) in Twentieth Century Impressions of Ceylon,\np. 45, in Part XL The Portuguese Period,\u201d of his article on the History of\nCeylon. I should add that the late Mr. C. M. Fernando was a Roman Catholic.)\nAlong the Western littoral of Ceylon the Portuguese established Roman Catholic\nMissions with the same thoroughness with which they built magnificent\nfortresses at every key point. Even as Italy, the premier Roman Catholic\ncountry in Europe today, has been recently civilizing the savage\u201d Ethiopian\nwith the aid of such beneficent instruments as bombs, cannon, and poison gas so\nher prototype of the 16th Century, the great Portugal, tried to wean the\nbenighted heathen from the ways of evil by such gentle means as wanton\ndesecration of Buddhist and Hindu temples of far-flung fame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Hindu Temple of a Thousand Columns in old Trincomalee was razed to\nthe ground and the granite of its carved columns and cornices was used in the\nbuilding of a fort. The ancient Buddhist Temple of Devi Nuwara in the South,\nwhich had evoked the homage of poets and of kings, was demolished, and only the\nstory of its pristine splendor remains. Such was the thoroughness and the\nloving kindness with which the Portuguese, followers of the Prince of Peace,\ndisseminated Peace on Earth, goodwill to men.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BUDDHISTS TAKE THEIR OATH ON THE BIBLE!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Dutch, who invaded and later occupied a large part of Ceylon,\nsupplanting the Portuguese, did not believe in pushing their religion forward\nby fire and sword, but adopted a telling tactic instead: they denied Government\njobs to all but members of the particular Protestant sect to which they\nbelonged. The British, to whom the Island was ceded in 1815, undertook to\nsafeguard the interests of Buddhism in Ceylon, but, as too often happens in\nsuch cases, the British were at no time enthusiastic in carrying out their\npromise and at times were even actively hostile to the cause of Buddhism. They\nwithdrew from Buddhism, quite rightly from their point of view, the patronage\nthat Buddhism had always enjoyed under our own kings. They did their best to\nfoster among the Buddhists a feeling of inferiority. Mr. (late Sir) P.\nArunachalam, Registrar-General of the time, says in the Census Report of 1901:\n– Previously it was considered among Sinhalese rather fashionable to be\nthought Christians, and I have, in my judicial experience, known Buddhists\ntaking their oath on the Bible as a matter of course. This is no longer the\ncase. They are rather proud of their religion, and have even become aggressive\nto Christianity … The Buddhists, too, show a considerable increase in the\nnumber of literates. In every hundred Buddhist males there were, in 1901, six\nliterates more than in 1891 and eleven more than in 1881, while the proportion\nof Buddhist female literates (5.2) is twice the proportion of 1891 and nearly four\n\/times that of 1881. (Quoted in Twentieth Century Impressions of Ceylon. P.224,\nin an article on Buddhist Education).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What has been the cause of this change for the better in the position\nof the Buddhist community? I give the answer in the words of the same report,\ndispassionate and unimpeachable testimony as it is: Of late years, thanks to\nColonel Olcott, the Buddhist community has awakened from its lethargy and made\ngreat advance in the spread of instruction. There are now Buddhist schools\nthroughout the island, under the management of the theosophical Society founded\nby him, and really good work is done by them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 *\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0S.A. Wijayatilake \u2018Ananda in Swaddling Clothes\u2019 (Extracted from the Ananda College Golden Jubilee Souvenir – 1936)<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by S.A. Wijayatilake (former Principal, Ananda College) * Three and a half centuries of foreign aggression and occupation – at first partial, but since 1815 complete – of the land had not only demoralized and emasculated the Sinhalese people generally, but had adversely affected the position of Buddhism in this Island in particular. The Portuguese, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[120],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-118644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118644","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=118644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118644\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}