{"id":80346,"date":"2018-08-21T11:40:30","date_gmt":"2018-08-21T18:40:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=80346"},"modified":"2018-08-21T11:40:30","modified_gmt":"2018-08-21T18:40:30","slug":"when-the-sinhala-kings-ruled-our-country-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2018\/08\/21\/when-the-sinhala-kings-ruled-our-country-2\/","title":{"rendered":"When the Sinhala Kings ruled our country"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>Sudath Gunasekara<\/em> <\/span><\/h2>\n<p>20<sup>th<\/sup>\u00a0 August 2018<\/p>\n<p><strong>12<sup>th<\/sup> Century <\/strong><strong>Royal decree prohibiting killing <\/strong><strong>King Kirthi Nissanka Malla of Polonnaruwa<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Ordering by the beat of the drum that no animals should be killed within a radius of seven <em>gaus<\/em> from the city, he gave security to animals. He also gave security to the fish in the twelve great tanks, and bestowing on (the region\u2019s people) gold and cloth and whatever other kind of wealth they wished; he commanded them not to catch birds and so gave security to birds\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This inscription, which is engraved in an upright stone slab at Ruwanweliseya, Anuradhapura, is a transcript of a decree issued in the late12th Century by King Kirthi Nissanka Malla of Polonnaruwa. It is reflective of the high moral concern that the rulers and people of Sri Lanka showed towards animal life in ancient times.<\/p>\n<p>As the Mahavamsa says those days the Kings were one with the religion and the people. They never tormented the subjects by imposing unbearable taxes and going by the Dharmasokian principles of statecraft (<em>save purisa mama paja)<\/em> they considered the subjects as their own children<\/p>\n<p>King Sirisangabo said <em>Iman saraththan pisitam sareeram dharemi lokassa hitatta meva\u201d <\/em>This body of mine with blood and flesh, I bear, for the benefit of people.<\/p>\n<p>Remember those days the Kings were not elected by the people, unlike today as such in fact they were not under obligation to treat the subjects like that. They were only bound by custom, tradition and religion.<\/p>\n<p>Look at the way how shabbily our politicians who rise to power on our shoulders treat us even after coming to power through our vote and how stupidly our people cast their precious vote to these traitors who destroy the nation.<\/p>\n<p>See the difference since then and now?<\/p>\n<p>A little thought to ponder.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sudath Gunasekara 20th\u00a0 August 2018 12th Century Royal decree prohibiting killing King Kirthi Nissanka Malla of Polonnaruwa Ordering by the beat of the drum that no animals should be killed within a radius of seven gaus from the city, he gave security to animals. He also gave security to the fish in the twelve great [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dr-sudath-gunasekara"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80346","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=80346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80346\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}