KAMALIKA PIERIS

When the Eelam war ended, the Southern Sinhalese Buddhists took the opportunity to travel to

 Buddhist sites in the north that had long been inaccessible. As a result, busloads of Sinhalese Buddhists flocked to the Northern parts of Sri Lanka.

The A9 highway, which connects the North and South of Sri Lanka, was reopened on December 21, 2009. 58,694 people travelled to Jaffna from December 21 to 29 of that year, said the media. At the end of December 2009, about 30,000 tourists had visited Jaffna daily. 200,000 to 300,000 people visited Jaffna during weekends in 2010. By the end of December 2011, about 3 million Sri Lankans had visited Jaffna.  By   2019, visits had reduced since most people had visited Jaffna, reported Samaratunga et al. [1].

The security forces and the government encouraged Buddhist pilgrimages to come to Jaffna. This was to show Southern power in the North   said Samaratunga et al. Sinhalese Buddhists visiting Jaffna gaze upon the region with a sense of ownership fueled by the triumphalism.

 These tours will link the north with the rest of the island, said the deeply anxious Tamil Separatist Movement. This will break the isolation of the north and east and make it more accessible to those in the rest of the island.

Tamil Separatist Movement has looked at the Buddhist places tourists visit in the north and they have picked out Kantarodai as the place which will act as the symbol of Buddhist Jaffna to the Sinhala tourist.

Highly guarded by the Sri Lanka Army, this space is entirely detached from the Tamil neighborhood it is located in, they said. An old Tamil woman recalled the good old days when they used to collect beads from the premises and sell them to tourists. She complained that they are no longer allowed to do so.  

The ancient Bhikkhu burial mounds of Kadurugoda  is  a must-see destination for Buddhists visiting Jaffna since it provides clear evidence of Buddhism’s presence in ancient Jaffna, said Samaratunga et al. Buddhists do not visit the ancient Kadurugoda Viharaya to  worship. They visit this place to witness the ancient Buddhist Heritage in Jaffna district, they observed.

 Actually, Kantarodai does not rank highly in the history of Buddhist Jaffna. Paul E Pieris made much more significant discoveries in other parts of Jaffna such as Chunnakam. These findings showed the wide spread of Buddhism in Jaffna in the ancient period. The attraction of Kantarodai is in its architecture which reminds one of Borobudur.

 But Tamil Separatist Movement is thinking of the impact on the contemporary Sinhala visitor, who they imagine will be greatly impressed by Kantarodai. (They will not, they have seen much more imposing Buddhist monuments elsewhere in Sri Lanka.)

Therefore Tamil Separatist Movement has provided a history for Kantarodai which is a mirror opposite of the orthodox history. They declare that the original name was Kantarodai, now Sinhalised to Kadurugoda. Although the official name of the area is ‘Kandarodai’, the specific site of pilgrimage is named ‘Kadurugoda Viharaya’, a Sinhalised form of the Tamil term ‘Kandarodai’, said Nirmal Dewasiri.[2]

The conversion of this site into an exclusively Sinhala-Buddhist space can be seen as the emergence of a parallel ‘super space’ in the middle of the Tamil North,  Nirmal said .This ‘super space’ is constructed as a part of the broader strategy to dominate the postwar North.

I visited the place in April 2010, and interviewed a number of pilgrims. Almost all of the interviewees had no prior knowledge of the place. Many came to know of the place after they visited Jaffna. All of them were unaware of the Tamil name and only knew the Sinhalised form ‘Kadurugoda’. There were several boards erected by various organizations and business firms from the South. They clearly represented the dominant Sinhala-Buddhist accounts of the place, said Nirmal.

WHMS Samarathunga, Li Cheng, and PR Weerathunga wrote on Buddhist gaze and power in a post-war destination: case study of Jaffna”. They studied how the post-war Buddhist gaze helped to strengthen Sinhala-Buddhist nationalism after the war.

They also saw these visits as Tours of Power”. The pilgrimages conducted by Sinhalese Buddhists to post-war damaged and restricted areas can also be identified as a Tour of Power,” they said. Domestic Buddhist pilgrims visit post-war destinations with a sense of triumphalism. They perform power” via Buddhist gaze” and inspecting gaze” and try to visually claim what they believe was originally theirs. This” Buddhist gaze” and inspecting gaze” could eventually impact the cultural and religious values of the Jaffna Tamil people, suggested Samaratunga et al.

Samaratunga et al looked at the Buddhist places the tourists/pilgrims visited. The authors went to Nagadipa and noted that the entrance to Nagadipa is set in such as manner that the pilgrims saw the stupa first, not the Hindu kovil.  I would add that there is no need. The kovil, strategically set at the tip of the island can be seen for miles from the sea. The dagoba is not visible.

Nagadipa is now displaying itself as a temple that survived the Eelam war. Nagadipa   stood up to the LTTE. It was challenge several times but Nagadipa survived due to the   personality of the chief priest and the army. It was said that even the LTTE was afraid of this monk. The chief priest at Nagadipa had a gallery of photographs to bring pilgrims’’ attention to the difficulties the temple faced during the war period, reported Samaratunga et al.

Naga Vihara is the first Buddhist temple one meets on entering Jaffna. It is located approximately two kilometers away from the city center and is a popular Buddhist site among Sinhalese and Buddhist travelers.  It is a popular pilgrim shelter where Sinhalese Buddhists to stay overnight even today. During the Ceasefire Agreement period, the temple expanded the small Vishrama Shala that existed before the war to cater to the influx of tourists’ demands.

 In addition, since Naga Vihara is the only Buddhist Temple in Jaffna city the government wanted it to stand strong because it represents Buddhism in a non-Buddhist region. As a result, both Sri Lankan security forces and the Sri Lankan government sponsored and assisted in the construction of the Vishrama Shala, said Samaratunga et al.  (Continued)

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[1] WHMS Samarathungaa,c*, Li Chengb,c, and PR Weerathungaa, cBuddhist gaze and power in a post-war destination: case study of Jaffna,Sri Lanka https://www.academia.edu/44622423/Buddhist_gaze_and_power_in_a_post_war_destination_case_study_of_Jaffna_

[2]Nirmal Ranjith Dewasiri. ‛History’ after the War:Historical Consciousness in the Collective

Sinhala-Buddhist Psyche in Post-War Sri Lanka. International Centre for Ethnic Studies

July 2013