nalanda sahayogaya

8/3/2019 Nalanda Sahayogaya

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http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nalanda_Gedige_temple.jpg

Two remarkable tendencies coexisted throughout the Second Sinhala Civilisation

that originated in Dambadeniya and ended in Kandy.

Resisting others Kandyan Buddhism

One of these became crystallized as Kandyan Buddhism a form of Buddhism

that came to represent the visible and political remnant of the great heritage of

the ancient Sinhalese. This is the mainspring from which the exclusivist Buddhistidentity draws sustenance.

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By the time the Sinhalese took refuge in Polonnaruva the South Asian region and

in fact the world had changed. The great irrigation civilisations were living on

borrowed time. Exploration, plunder, piracy and trade would become the new

sources of global power. We were a nation of cultivators that lacked a standing

army and a serviceable navy. We had no visions of distant foreign lands, no

tradition of trade and commerce to build a foundation for this new age. And sowe continued to look inward and find strength in the same ethic of cultivation

and a brotherhood united by a sacred bond to the Buddha Sasana. The Sinhalese

could not be mobilized to kill or lay their lives down for anything less.

Court politics for the nobility and kings on the other hand acquired a markedly

cosmopolitan character. This elite had now drawn away considerably from the

old tripartite consensus of the village, sangha and king where the Gamani and

Asoka principles ensured a strong interdependence between these three

elements of sovereignty. These two principles would remain relevant right up to

the reign of our last sovereign king to fuel our economy, defence and state policybut their vitality would be markedly diminished in this second phase from 1236

to 1815.

Vijayabahu I had fought a soldiers war unlike Dutugemunu who drew his power

directly from the people. The connection between the king and countrymen was

less horizontal and more vertical now. In fact Vijayabahu relied on the

velaikkaras the South Indian warriors to guard the palladium of kingship the

tooth relic. All this pointed to a marked reduction of the democratic element that

underscored Gamani Kingship. The plebeian age was drawing to a close. The newage would be patrician where military force rather than the consent of the

people would validate and sustain monarchy.

The alienation between the elite and people that set in is dealt with in some

detail by Martin Wickramasinghe in his work Buddhism and Culture. Sanskrit

became the language of the lettered, the Brahmins infiltrated court rituals and

became chief advisors (purohitas) to kings. The unlettered villagers and the

simple monks who served them continued to use prakrit the simple language

that would be the distinguishing marks of works like Saddharmalankaraya,

Saddharmaratnavaliya and Loveda Sangarava. The word Hinduism was not invogue then (this being a term coined during the British Raj in India). Brahmanism

and Saivism with their locally domesticated Gods had encroached the sphere of

influence of the sangha and this gave a new impetus to a strong strain of anti-

Brahmin sentiment among the local monks who saw their role as guardians of

the purity of the Buddhist faith and by implication of the Sinhala race.

Kalinga Magha, who lit the funeral pyre of the First Sinhala Civilisation launched

a savage attack against the monks and nobles who were predominantly of the

govi caste. Liyanagamage poses the question whether Magha, a religious fanatic

was influenced by the Veera Saiva sect in Southern India that stood against all

caste distinctions. In fact the Second Sinhala Civilisation, which placed survival ofthe state (as defined by the elite) before other considerations drew the elements

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of Sinhala race, govi caste and Buddhism tightly to affirm an ideal of purity by

birth referred to as ubhaya kula parishuddha.

Brahmin influence however did not wane. Even during the reign of

Parakramabahu VI, the last unifier of Thunsinhale the Brahmin purohitas

continued to function. In fact the last Buddhist King of Kotte Buvanekabhahu VIIwas advised by Sri Ramaraksha Panditha, a Brahmin who also led the famous

Kotte embassy to Lisbon in 1543.

The second half of the 16th century was period of profound uncertainty where the

fate of Sinhala Buddhist kingship hung in the balance. Both the Kings of Kotte

(Dharmapala) and Kandy (Karaliyadde) had converted to Christianity. Sitawaka

Rajasinha bore the standard of resistance to the Portugese but ultimately he too

renounced the ancient faith of his forefathers to embrace Saivism. The reasons

for this conversion are not clear and Alan Strathern1 states that a conspiracy by

the Buddhist sangha against him could have been either the cause or

consequence of his conversion.

In any event the sangha was hard at work during this disastrous period to restore

Buddhist Kingship. Even the tooth relic may have disappeared with the death in

Jaffna of Vidiya Bandara perhaps its last custodian. Vidiya was hounded out of

Kotte by the Portugese and Sitawaka forces acting in unison against a feared

adversary. He found sanctuary in Jaffna but it was his fate to meet a violent end

there. The tooth relic was somehow re-discovered in Delgamuva to serve the

interests of the Second Sinhala Civilisation.

Devanagala Ratanalankara was the monk who worked indefatigably to bring theKandyans together. They found their champion in a chieftain a non royal,

Konappu Bandara, who had defected to the Portugese and then turned apostate

to re-establish Buddhist Kingship in Kandy. The point here is that the Kandyan

Kingdom was formed in staunch opposition to both Saivism and Christianity. The

name chosen by Devanagala for Konappu Bandara Vimaladharmasuriya which

means sun of the pure doctrine is expressive of this aspiration towards purity in

an age of little purity. Of course the rank duplicity and infidelity of these times

stands in contra-distinction to the noble aspirations of monks like Devanagala

(and also Welivita Sri Saranankara after him) to defend what seemed an absent

ideal.

The South Indians kept coming in to be naturalized as Buddhists and Govi kula

Sinhalese. In addition to these immigrants the Kandyan Kings sought royal wives

from South India to keep the idea of royal blood alive and to avoid a marriage

into any family of a Kandyan noble. With these royal maidens came their

relatives the Malabar traders among them who maintained their separate

identity, religion and a trade supported by whatever royal monopoly Kandy

enjoyed under the stranglehold of the Dutch, thus forming a distinct power bloc.

1 Strathern, Alan (2010). Kingship and Conversion in Sixteenth Century Sri Lanka: Portugese

Imperialism in a Buddhist Land. Cambridge University Press India/Vijitha Yapa Colombo

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The resultant anti-Malabar sentiment would eventually separate the king from

the Nobles who conspired to bring in the British as the saviours of the people.

Consequently Kandyan Buddhism, which is here used as a composite term to

denote the ideology of opposition based on a unique Sinhalese identity had no

consistent enemy. It would sometimes join with the South Indians against thewhite man and at other times join with the white man against the South Indians.

This selective xenophobia was a result of the absence of clear moral principles as

the basis of state policy.

Our Axial Heritage

The second remarkable tendency is a tradition of collaboration with our South

Indian neighbours that stretches back to antiquity. It is written down that King

Vijaya sought and obtained his wife from Madhura thus making the Dravidiansco-creators of Lankan Kingship. Kuvenis children sought refuge in Malaya Rata

just as the Sinhalese themselves would find their last resting place there. The

cycle ended with the arrival of Nayaks from Madhura to provide us with our last

four kings, Sri Vijaya, Kirthi Sri, Rajadhi and Sri Wickrama.

Just as our ancient history can be viewed as a defence of the island against

South Indian invasions it can also be viewed as a historic collaboration with

progressive and sympathetic forces on the mainland from time to time.

The Dravidian had a special place within the Lankan Royal Court a place that is

consistent with the origins of the Vijayan regal line and the loyalty they havedisplayed in service to the Lankan crown and Buddhist Kingship.

Colonial Tamil intellectuals and leaders like Ananda Coomaraswamy, Sir

Ponnambalam Arunachalam and Sir Ponnambalam Ramanathan were well aware

of this historical fact and they considered themselves genuine and true blooded

Lankans. Some of the Sinhalese leaders on the other hand preferred to forget or

ignore this facet. Democracy and universal franchise promoted a sense of

dominance through numbers and this alienated the Tamils. Ignorant to their

common history most Sinhalese and Tamil colonial leaders were blinded by

English education and their new trappings and they literally dug the graves offuture generations of Sinhalese and Tamil youth who would die fighting each

other.

The Polonnaruva Period represents a triumph of this principle of co-existence and

harmony as this was also a time of extensive contacts with our South Indian

neighbours. One only needs to compare the ancient monuments in

Anuradhapura with those in Polonnaruva and ask if the Siva Temples found side

by side with Buddhist architecture represents a dilution of Buddhism or a higher

level of spiritual sophistication.

It is often overlooked that Lanka became a beneficiary of the Axial Age with thereception of Buddhism in the 3rd century BC. The axial age was a transformative

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period for human societies in China, India, Israel and Greece as this produced a

whole pantheon of human beings Lao Tzu and Confucius in China, Mahavira

and Buddha in India, the Old Testament Prophets in Israel and the Greek

Philosophers including Socrates and Pythagoras who rose to a position that

virtually challenged the Gods in the sense of blind belief and fear of unknown

forces of nature.

These were human beings who swung the attention of the people away from

distant Gods and rituals towards their own heart and mind; their higher self. It

was the axial age that bestowed on humanity its most powerful ideas like self-

reliance, compassion, interdependence and that the earthly body and mind could

be transcended with the human spirit. It conveyed the idea that human beings

could evolve into a divine way of life by working through and rising above our

animal and human realities.

Axial wisdom acknowledges that different cultures may, in their search for truth,

develop approaches that seem different from an external perspective.

Nevertheless the basic motivation and human qualities that drive this search by

different individuals separated from each other by time and space can be

remarkably uniform and consistent from an internal perspective. The spiritual

history of mankind has, from its very inception, been an exercise in

communication. The great teachers of the axial age sought the best and highest

knowledge and they were not compartmentalized by current classifications and

written doctrines produced by latter day priests. It is the free exercise of their

critical faculties, their wisdom and compassion that provided the spiritual

scaffolding for those societies that received the axial inheritance. Just as

Buddhism borrowed freely from non vedic sramanic or ascetic movements that

pre-dated Buddha, Brahmanism borrowed sramanic ideas to change and reform

from within. In the same way Judaism, Christianity and Islam represent different

stages in one search for God shaped as always by social changes and by the

pioneering spirits who worked on the frontiers of human conscience.

Both the Anuradhapura and Polonnaruva Periods represent the ability of the

ancient Lankan to apply the wisdom of the axial age to a changing reality in

order to respond to human needs in a way that was fundamentally sane and

constructive without resorting to unnecessary violence as a solution to human

problems.

The reign of Kirthi Sri Rajasinha (1847-1882) and his collaboration with the last

Sangharaja Welivita Sri Saranankara was the last flicker of this same spirit a

clear application of the axial tradition against overwhelming odds in an age of

deceit and violence. At the same time we saw in the attempted assassination of

Kirthi Sri by a clique of Kandyan Buddhist monks and nobles the limits of its

application in feudal Sinhalese society where hatred of the Saivite other would

re-surface to cloak personal greed and weakness in a nationalist garb. Kirthi Sri

survived the assassination attempt to pardon both the Sangharaja and his

deputy after banishing them for 5 years.

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The Esala Pageant the traditional homage paid to the revered tooth relic by the

Kandyan Buddhists has chosen to reflect diversity within the traditional Buddhist

unity by accommodating the four devales dedicated to the Gods, Natha, Vishnu

and Kataragama and the Goddess Pattini. This is an express moderation or

modification of Kandyan Buddhism that enriches and ennobles it; a change to

the form that enhances the overall substance by acknowledging a wider reality.

Collaboration with others the Nalanda Principle

In the centre of this island, connecting the ancient capitals of Anuradhapura and

Polonnaruva with the last Royal capital in Kandy is found the monument to our

Axial Heritage of wisdom, inclusion, openness and collaboration. The little village

of Nalanda may be named to remind Lankans of the great Buddhist University in

India where the intellect and spirit soared high in Buddhist India. The recently

diverted Mahaweli River skirts the sacred ground that is tucked away just onekilometre from the main road. The surrounding environment is idyllic and

peaceful unspoilt by the attentions of our cacophonic organized religion. The

glory of Nalanda seems to be its unobtrusive and enigmatic nature neither

totally Buddhist nor totally Hindu; it defies definition, appropriation and

misappropriation. The architecture is South Indian and Pallava and its

construction is placed between the 8th and 10th centuries.

This is a terribly important period for several reasons.

The Muslim invasions were ravaging India and institutional Buddhism there was

nearing collapse. At the same time a new phase of Buddhism began under the

patronage of the Pala Emperors where Buddhist individuals began to leave the

monastic fold and its limitations and sought a new synthesis of practical living

that would affirm the original democratic, egalitarian and liberative

fundamentals of Buddhism. This was the Tantric Age and its exemplars were the

84 Maha Siddhas who would renounce worldly convention and respectability in

their search for truth.

Tantrism influenced Buddhism in Sri Lanka. Of its positive side there is little

mention whilst the negative side dominates our official history. Conversely we

know everything positive about Theravada orthodoxy but the negatives are notpart of the establishment but individual deviance. Tantric Buddhism requires the

same treatment.

In any event the critical tradition of our early Buddhism was receptive to those

currents of Mahayana and Tantric Buddhism that made their way into the island

and this checked the dominance of the traditional Mahavihara.

This period also coincides with the outstanding stewardship of the Second

Lambakarna Dynasty which began when the First Sena (or warrior) King

Manavamma returned from India. He had lived there where he fought on the side

of Pallava Princes and won their confidence as a man of great nobility andcourage. He was crowned in 684 AD after liberating the land from the menace of

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foreign mercenaries who had dominated local politics for a long time. The 300

year period that thus began ended with the capture of the last King of

Anuradhapura and the relegation of Lanka to a Province of the Chola Empire.

This was the final consolidation of the Anuradhapura Kingdom an era of peace,

prosperity and stability due in great measure to the restraint, moderation and

discipline of the royalty who ensured peaceful and orderly successions to thethrone. This was an exceptional record considering the periods that went both

before and after it.

Thus this period began with a strong Pallava influence. The Nalanda Gedige

bears an interesting design. The rectangle that houses it is divided into four

squares. The first square on the right hand side is empty. The second bears the

Gedige in sculpted sandstone. The top square on the left hand side bears a Bo

tree whilst the second square contains the mound of a stupa. All four aspects,

emptiness, the shrine dedicated to symbols of worship, the stupa and Bo tree

represent an ideal of integration and a rich field of educative significance to the

modern Lankan. It calls our attention to a different kind of

learning from what we have been used to when visiting our ancientmonuments.

Nalanda is a place where time has literally stood still. Its message has

obviously eluded the Lankans who go from place to place wondering,

who built this? Who lived here? When was this built and what do the

carvings represent and how can we label this? As Buddhist, Saivite or

Tantric?

These are no doubt an important part of the inquiry. But the real

question is who is the person standing before this monument? What is

the personal message it bears for me across the centuries? To me,

who is stuck with a plastic identity card that ensures my movement

unmolested by the Police and Army and an equally plastic identity

defined by race, religion and caste that seeks life and meaning in a

world threatened with change and annihilation? What is the square I

must relate to and occupy to understand its message?

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nalanda sahayogaya

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