BOOKS

Glimpses into Sri Lankan history

Alien Winds Across Paradise: A New Look on Sri Lanka's Foreign Relations through the Ages by Tyronne Fernando; Vikas Publishing House Pvt Ltd., New Delhi, 2002; pages 91, Rs.350.

TYRONNE FERNANDO, Sri Lanka's Minister for Foreign Affairs, in this recently published book, attempts to take a "new look" at Sri Lankan foreign relations through history. Needless, to say, this complex and fascinating subject cannot be studied in depth in such a small book. The book raises more questions than it provides answers. The study of the island's dynamic interaction with the outside world, especially with Tamil Nadu and Kerala, is a challenging task and should be approached with a multi-disciplinary perspective.

"History", Eric Hobsbawm has pointed out, "is the raw material for nationalist, ethnic or fundamentalist ideologies as poppies are the raw material for heroin addiction." In many developing countries, including Sri Lanka, the sense of national identity is being built on the glories of the past, real and imaginary. Most writers tend to look at the past through a prism of the present. This invariably results in a jaundiced view and leads to distortion and falsification of history.

Despite their diversities, the people of the island, like their Indian counterparts, have come to share common cultural attributes. But with the exacerbation of the ethnic conflict, the chauvinists among the Sinhalese and the Tamils, two sides of the same coin, started projecting the two communities as antagonistic entities who were at war with one another for several centuries. Two illustrations given below substantiate the point that truth and objectivity are the first causalities in times of conflict.

In his book The National Question and the Tamil Struggle, Satchi Ponnambalam claims that the original inhabitants of the islands were Tamils. Ponnambalam suggests that the Sinhalese were originally Tamils, who were converted to Buddhism and who adopted the Sinhalese language. He says that many of the monuments considered important by the Sinhalese were constructed by the Tamils. The Sinhala Commission Report provides an entirely opposite view. According to the Sinhala Commission, there is no evidence of a distinct Tamil community or a Tamil kingdom in the Jaffna peninsula before the 13th century. On the contrary, Sinhala chronicles and inscriptions indicate that there were large and extensive Sinhala settlements from early times. According to the report, the Sinhalese were the lawful rulers and legal heirs to the Jaffna kingdom.

What is the reality? Prof. Stanley Tambiah, after years of painstaking research, has come to the conclusion that the Sinhalese and the Tamils share many parallel features of "traditional caste, kinship, popular religious cults, customs and so on. But they have come to be divided by their mythic charters and tendentious historical understandings of the past." The common belief in Sri Lanka is that the Sinhalese are "fair Aryans" and the Tamils are "dark Dravidians". Prof. Tambiah has exploded this myth. Quoting Gananath Obeyesekere, Tambiah adds,"If it were possible to trace the present day Sinhalese population's ancestry far enough, all lines in major part lead to South India." According to Obeyesekere, "biologically speaking, those whom we call Sinhala are in fact racially inter-mixed with South Indian peoples and with aboriginal groups like Vedda; and the Tamils, who live in the north and the east, are also similarly biologically mixed."

Dr. K.S. Singh, the well-known Indian anthropologist, has pointed out that in India there are several communities who can be classified as subscribing to more than one religion. It is interesting to note that Sinhalese religious practices point in the same direction. The Hindu Bhakti cult has influenced Theravada Buddhism and there are images of Hindu gods in Buddhist temples. The temple housing the deity of Skanda (Muruga) in Kataragama, located near the Yala sanctuary in the northeast of the island, continues to demonstrate "major institutional interaction of several religious faiths... all go to Kataragama, where the atmosphere is one of tolerance and goodwill." During a visit to the temple a couple of years ago, this writer found Buddhist pilgrims outnumbering Hindus. The Sinhalese carry the Kavadi with great devotion and fervour.

Tyronne Fernando refers to the Buddhist chronicles and mentions that the founding father of the Sinhalese kingdom was Prince Vijaya, a Kshatriya from North India who came to the island with 700 followers in 544 B.C. Vijaya aligned himself with an aboriginal princess named Kuveni, married her and with her assistance became the king of the country. Later on, he drove Kuveni away and married a princess from the Pandya kingdom in Madurai and made her the queen. His followers also followed a similar path. According to Buddhist sources, from the beginning, the Sinhalese nation was a product of assimilation between the Sinhalese and the Tamils.

Given the geographical contiguity, Sri Lanka has had close cultural contacts with Tamil Nadu and Kerala. The narrow and shallow Palk Strait was not a barrier, it was a bridge through which religious leaders, merchants and ordinary people moved freely. Few Sri Lankan scholars want to subscribe to the objective truth that Buddhism was a virile religion in South India and the spread and efflorescence of Theravada Buddhism in the island had much to do with fruitful contacts with Buddhist centres of learning like Kancheepuram, Kaveripatnam and Madurai. Buddhaghosa of Magadha, "poet, philosopher and commentator" of Theravada Buddhism, was patronised by Sanghapala, the king of Kancheepuram. It is a matter of pride for the Tamils that one of the greatest epics of the Theravada form of Buddhism is in Tamil. Manimekalai, written in the second century A.D., is one of the finest expositions of Tamil Buddhist literature.

Kerala's relations with Sri Lanka and its interaction with the Sinhalese and the Tamils remains another neglected area of historical research. Except for stray references, Fernando has also not done due justice to this subject. When Hinduism began to dominate the religious scene in Kerala from the 10th century, a large number of Buddhists migrated to Ceylon. It was easy for them to assimilate with the local people and make an impact on all aspects of the island's life. The spread of the cult of Goddess Pattini is an illustration of the benign interaction among various religious groups. It is also a reflection of the assimilable qualities of the peoples of South Asia. All aspects of Sri Lankan life - society, culture, religion, language, art forms and even food habits - have been profoundly influenced by South India. The alien winds did not overwhelm the island. On the contrary, they became an integral part of the variegated cultural fabric of the island.

Diversity and pluralism are as much a vital part of the Sri Lankan landscape as they are of the Indian and Indonesian landscapes. We must strengthen, consolidate and celebrate this diversity. Pluralism is our strength. It is the bulwark against majoritarian domination. In his absorbing novel, When Memory Dies, A. Sivanandan narrates a conversation between Uncle Para and Vijay. Uncle Para tells Vijay, "When memory dies, a people die." Vijay asks Uncle Para, "But if we make false memories ?" Uncle Para responds, "That is worse, that is murder."

Professor V. Suryanarayan is a former Director and Senior Professor, Centre for South and Southeast Asian Studies, University of Madras, Chennai.