{"id":81538,"date":"2018-09-29T15:38:45","date_gmt":"2018-09-29T22:38:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=81538"},"modified":"2018-09-29T15:38:45","modified_gmt":"2018-09-29T22:38:45","slug":"budunge-rasthiyaduwa-has-the-author-bitten-off-more-than-he-can-chew-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2018\/09\/29\/budunge-rasthiyaduwa-has-the-author-bitten-off-more-than-he-can-chew-i\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cBudunge Rasthiyaduwa\u201d: Has the Author Bitten off More than He Can Chew? – I"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion.<\/em>–Jack Kerouac<\/strong><\/p>\n

Most Buddhists are likely to bristle at the very mention of the title of K.K. Srinath\u2019s novel because of its apparent characterization of the Buddha as a tramp, a vagabond, a vagrant or a dawdler. That\u2019s because they are normal mature human beings; their reaction is justified. To associate Buddha with \u2018rasthiyaduwa\u2019 (vagabondage) even for a literary purpose is incredibly disrespectful of him. That is foolhardy on Srinath\u2019s part. He could have avoided it. The language in the rest of the book appears to be no better as can be guessed from what we hear about it. But I will not condemn Srinath as a novelist offhand; probably, he has a great future in his literary career. That is, I am ready to give him the benefit of the doubt for the time being.<\/p>\n

However, if Srinath is a serious writer of fiction, a literary artist, he should be able to justify the title he has chosen for his novel in terms of its content. That is, he should convince the serious readers that the intended meaning of the title is not its straightforward literal sense, and that he didn\u2019t mean to insult the Buddha or disgrace Buddhism. He should do so because as (presumably) a Sri Lankan and a writer in Sinhala, he is dependent on the local Sinhala readership to which he is bound by unbreakable cultural ties; he is obliged to respect the cultural and religious sensitivities, and the corresponding literary sensibilities, that he shares with them. Using such a title as a mere marketing ploy, if such is the case, cannot be approved at all. In Christianity, using God\u2019s name wrongfully is considered blasphemy: Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain\u201d, says the Bible. Though there is no offence known as blasphemy in Buddhism, disrespect towards the Buddha or other religious founder is not acceptable behaviour in any civilized society. Paradoxically, though, while the quality of the book cannot be determined by merely looking at the title, the discussion generated by its profanity has the potential of leading us along different paths of discovery in our understanding of the emerging cultural, social, political, and economic anti-establishmentarianism of the millennial generation, which I view as a positive development that must be managed by responsible adults (unspoiled by power politics), both young and old.<\/p>\n

K.K. Srinath strikes me, from what little I can guess from Vidu\u2019s quotes from his text, as an educated but callow young man. But such first impressions can prove false; he could be a smart crook as well. However, the insult he has potentially caused to Buddhism is nothing compared to the criminally disrespectful attitude that some of our power-hungry political leaders adopt towards all religions in the name of reconciliation, and secularism, which they deliberately misunderstand and misinterpret or just obfuscate in order to use as a weapon against opponents. Readers, please reflect on the crimes (of commission and omission) that both supporters and opponents of secularism among our politicians (some members of the clergy engaging in partisan politics not excluded) commit against religions in our country, where, nevertheless, the masses are among the\u00a0 most religiously disciplined people in the world.<\/p>\n

While browsing through the You Tube, I came across two videos uploaded on separate occasions by two (obviously unrelated) young men who made some perceptive critical comments about Budunge Rasthiyaduwa\u201d. The first one, through which I came to know about Srinath\u2019s novel for the first time, was by a young expatriate worker in some foreign country. He castigated the author \u00a0for choosing the particular outrageous title. He said that the book could have literary value, whether it was of the highbrow or lowbrow kind, and that probably the book as a whole was not at all insulting to Buddhism. He confessed that he was making these censorious comments only by looking at the title, and not after reading it. However, he implied that he didn\u2019t expect much from a person who was so callous as to adopt such a title. His view was that\u00a0 readers first look at the title of a book before reading it, and form some idea about its content.<\/p>\n

The book is addressed to a Sinhala readership, most of whom are Buddhists. They can naturally get offended, even if they later realize that what the author wanted to do was something like highlighting the hypocrisy of most average Buddhists who have not understood the message of the Buddha properly (Of course, this is a criticism that could be leveled against the average adherents of any religion). The young man\u2019s view was that in a context where in Sri Lanka the Sinhalese Buddhist cultural heritage has been under sustained attack for a long time and where this has intensified in recent years, the people affected must be aware of deliberate offences and aggressive acts committed against Buddhism and Buddhists, and that they have a duty to take immediate steps to put an end to the dangerous trend. All that the peaceful Buddhists could possibly do was to pressure the authorities to enforce the law. That\u2019s what the monks and Buddhist organizations are currently doing and, in fact, have been doing for many years already.<\/p>\n

The second You Tube video dealing with the book that I watched was by a young man who calls himself Vidu\u201d.\u00a0 He offers a more informative and more elaborate review of the novel \u2018Budunge Rasthiyaduwa\u2019. He thinks that the title Budunge Rasthiyaduwa\u201d is most probably not meant to be an insult to Buddhism; the title may be a reference to the alleged experience of a deranged individual (probably the narrator himself) who fantasizes about attaining Buddhahood. (We know that in fiction or poetry, the first person narrator or the speaker is usually an imagined character, not the writer himself or herself.) Vidu reads out one or two sections from the text which (as far as I understand) do not reveal any remarkable creative talent in the writer (Srinath) as a novelist or any profundity in his thematic engagement or his worldview. But that could be a deceptive impression. What the reviewer argues is that Srinath, following in the footsteps of his former teacher Upul Nishantha Sannasgala who is also his publisher, could be deliberately adopting an unscrupulous \u2018negative marketing\u2019\u00a0 strategy (exploiting the paranoia-prone, multilaterally besieged state of the majority Sinhalese Buddhist community, in order to sell the book \u2013 This description and the adjective \u2018unscrupulous\u2019 before that are my elaborations). Vidu\u2019s helpful suggestion to the viewers of his video is that they need not waste their precious time reading Srinath\u2019s novel because he has already wasted two hours of his own time reading the book in preparation for making his review. So, the young reviewer\u2019s negative verdict on the quality of Srinath\u2019s novel Budunge Rasthiyaduwa\u201d is clear.<\/p>\n

Vidu selects some sections from the pages of the book to illustrate his points. Following is my free rendering into English of a paragraph from p. 5 of the book that he reads out:<\/p>\n

After having lain on the floor clasping my hand on my chest, I stepped out onto the road. It was not because I have a wife. It was because I realized \u00a0the truth about life in the clearest manner. Siduhath became Buddha. In this Bhadra Kalpa, he is the fourth one. I don\u2019t know which one comes next. There must have appeared countless Buddhas on this earth. They must have died in silence. At the same time, it is not a big deal by now for every man to feel as if he has attained Buddhahood. The time must have been 1 (am) in the night. I switched off the phone, never to pick it up again\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is much in the original Sinhala language text (quoted in translation above) that cannot be put across in a translation. The language and ideas used are offensive to Buddhist sentiments. I will explain a few below. The meaning of a literary text is a complex affair. Creative literature is verbal art. Among the many elements that contribute to its meaning or expressiveness is, of course, the most basic verbal part or words. The words of a language derive their multifarious meanings from the socio-cultural background of the speakers, particularly the native speakers of that language. Even in this very short specimen of Srinath\u2019s writing, many words and idioms derive their expressive power from their connection to Buddhist literature: e.g., lokayama (lit. the whole world, actually it means all existence, more precisely, the illusion of being); athaembula (lit. \u2018a nelli fruit on the palm\u2019 meaning something known to one very clearly; it is a simile usually and exclusively used in Buddhist texts (Incidentally, Sinhala \u2018nelli\u2019 is from Tamil nellikai. The English term is Indian gooseberry, Phyllanthus emblica; the classical Sinhala word \u2018aembula\u2019 comes from Sanskrit \u2018amla\u2019); Bhadra Kalpa (lit. Auspicious Aeon); Siduhath (Sinhala form of Siddhartha, the birth name of the Buddha. The name Siddhartha is usually not adopted by Sinhala Buddhists out of respect for the Buddha, although it is a common name for boys in India); the verb \u2018pasak wenawa\u2019 (realize) is usually limited to Buddhist doctrinal contexts. The sentences in the original which correspond to I stepped out onto the road. It was not because I have a wife..\u201d constitute an allusion to prince Siddhartha\u2019s act of secretly leaving his young wife and newborn son in the middle of the night, embarking on his long journey of spiritual discovery. This (appropriately embellished) biographical detail relating to the difficult first step of prince Siddhartha\u2019s launch into his search for absolute spiritual truth \u00a0is a recurrent motif in Buddhist literature, to which Sinhalese readers are \u00a0highly sensitive. It is a powerful concrete symbol of his Mahabhinishkramanaya (or the Great Renunciation) that inspires \u2018shraddha\u2019 (trust or faith resulting from the provisional acceptance of the Buddha\u2019s teachings) in the Buddhist\u2019s mind. These words and images are charged with deep religious evocativeness for Sinhala Buddhist readers. By applying such language to a rather sexually explicit, erotic context, Srinath, displays nothing but uncultured insouciance towards the Buddhist religion. It is not known whether Srinath did this out of abject ignorance or conscious design. These are my thoughts.<\/p>\n

Vidu says that the first person narrative that follows this introductory section of the book strikes him as the delirious prattle of a fever-stricken patient or that of an overdosed drug addict. He suggests that the novelist might have chosen the title Budunge Rasthiyaduwa\u201d because it is the befuddling story of a mentally deranged person who imagines that he is a Buddha that misleads the reader. (To be continued, still using Vidu\u2019s hints, and my own insights)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Rohana R. Wasala Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion.–Jack Kerouac Most Buddhists are likely to bristle at the very mention of the title of K.K. Srinath\u2019s novel because of its apparent characterization of the Buddha as a tramp, a vagabond, a vagrant or a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81538","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\/81538","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=81538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81538\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}