{"id":54761,"date":"2016-05-18T12:41:32","date_gmt":"2016-05-18T19:41:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=54761"},"modified":"2016-05-18T15:21:07","modified_gmt":"2016-05-18T22:21:07","slug":"cutting-of-the-ancient-divrungala-bodhi-tree","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2016\/05\/18\/cutting-of-the-ancient-divrungala-bodhi-tree\/","title":{"rendered":"Cutting of the ancient Divrungala Bodhi tree"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Bandu de Silva<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n
It is not only Sinhale Jatika Savidhanaya that should be concerened as reported in Hiru, but the entire nation. There is documentation of the protest made by the Royal Asiatic Society of Sri Lanka which even held a Seminar to discuss the issue of inauguration of this Sita Maha Devi project jointly sponsored by the former Sri Lanka Tourism Authority and India’s Madhya Pradesh’s BJP Chief Minister Chauhan who was invited to cut the first sod and who donated crores of cash to commence the project.<\/div>\n
The irony is\u00a0 that Chauhan’s visit had the blessings of the Mahabodhi Society of Sri Lanka. Chauhan visited the island\u00a0 taking cover behind the invitation by Mahabodhi Society but that the real purpose of the BJP leader espousing the Hindutva doctrine, was to\u00a0 sponsor the construction of the Sita Devi temple was\u00a0 not publicised here. It came to light as a result of Deccan Herald publishing the news of Chauhan cutting the first sod and donating money which news was brought to light by me.\u00a0 The Mahabodhi Society of India based in\u00a0 Sanchi wanting to maintain good relations with the Madhya Pradesh govt should have seen through the insidious plans of BJP religious extremists to make inroads into India. It was also ironical that The Secretary of Maha Bodhi Society, Sri Lanka,jumped at the Seminar to defend its participation in the invitation to Chauhan.It is perhaps, this Society which was behind President Sirisena visiting Sannchi for participation in a Hindu ceremony.<\/div>\n

The cutting of the ancient Bodhi tree, which is the existing symbolic representation of its use for swearing during the days of the Kandyan kingdom practised as a feature of the Kandyan legal system is adding insult to the injury. This spot of significance to the history of the Kandyan kingdom is now to be converted to a place connected to a mythical story of a woman (SITA) who according\u00a0 to one version of the mythical text, RAMAYANAYA, was expelled from the kingdom for sitting on the lap of another man and an alleged illicit affair with mythical Rama’s brother. The Mahabodhi Society and the Tourism Authority’s former Director General who were then accomplices in spreading Hindu worship in Sri Lanka should bear responsibility for joining in this what looks like a big conspiracy to erase true significance of place names and create new bogus history.Supporting the venture were the remnants of the Hela Havla school mad -hatters who gave curious interpretation to place names to make them associated with mythical Ravana story. For example, Wariyapola is interpreted as the aerodrome of Ravana by breaking up the name into parts (Wa- Air; Riya=Chariot :Pola =Station). I asked why Ussangoda was not similarly interpreted a the place where Ravana lifted (Ussan) Sita; or the latter went to sit on Ravana’s lap.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

A number of mad-hatters have joined in this effort to erase the true history of these places. They are linked to the people in India who demolished the 14th century Mosque in Ayodhya to build a mythical Rama temple over it claiming it was the place where Rama was born!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

On the other side, the Indian government has dismissed the Ramayana story as sheer myth. That is in connection with the protest over the construction of Sethu Samudra canal.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Bandu de Silva<\/p>\n

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\u0db6\u0ddd\u0db0\u0dd3\u0db1\u0dca \u0dc0\u0dc4\u0db1\u0dca\u0dc3\u0dda \u0d9a\u0db4\u0dcf \u0daf\u0dd0\u0db8<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u00a0https:\/\/youtu.be\/6fonwGoqTGc<\/a><\/h2>\n
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\"cuttingbodhitree1\"\"cuttingbodhitree2\"\"cuttingbodhitree3\"<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Bandu de Silva It is not only Sinhale Jatika Savidhanaya that should be concerened as reported in Hiru, but the entire nation. There is documentation of the protest made by the Royal Asiatic Society of Sri Lanka which even held a Seminar to discuss the issue of inauguration of this Sita Maha Devi project jointly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54761","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=54761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54761\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}