BUDDHIST VIHARAS AND EELAM Part 22b
Posted on July 20th, 2024
KAMALIKA PIERIS
The Ramayana trail focused on Sita, the wife of Prince Rama of India and the heroine of the Ramayana. Sita is promoted in the Ramayana tourist trail of Sri Lanka, for political purposes, while pretending it is pilgrimage. But the local culture has never been very interested in Sita. Sri Lanka‘s attention is on Ravana, fictional king of Lanka in the Indian epic, the Ramayana.
Ravana was a part of the folk culture in the Udarata, from the time of the Udarata kingdom. Local academics consider this unimportant, but the USA sees it as an important component in anti-Eelam activity. Ravana-in- Sri-Lanka” has therefore become an important research topic for the west.
Justin. W Henry’s Ravana’s Kingdom: The Ramayana and Sri Lankan History from Below (Princeton University Press, 2022) is the first monograph on the Ramayana and Ravana in Sri Lanka .It is available on line on payment. Abstracts of each chapter are available free. I looked at those.
Henry said that the book started as a quest to discover whether a Sinhalese version of the Ramayana existed. There is no authentic Sinhalese Ramayana, he said. All that appears to exist is the Rāvaṇa Katāva, an abridged poem discussing Ravana and his character, dating back no earlier than the seventeenth or eighteenth century.
Henry has gathered references to Ravana in Sinhala folklore, from the 14th century to the British period. He found that the Sinhala story telling tradition of the Kandyan period (1597-1815) included Ravana. Ramayana lore abounds across the island in kavi and folk stories, he said. Ravana featured in the folk culture of the time, not in the high culture. Ramayana has percolated into the lives of the Udarata people, through their folk culture. Kadaimpot alsohad references to Ravana.
Justin Henry said that Ravana had been introduced to the folk culture of the Udarata by the Tamil settlers who came into the island. The idea had been brought into Sri Lanka by Tamil settlers coming into the north and east, he said. Ravana’s character change from treacherous villain to sympathetic hero” in Sinhala thought can be traced to the oral traditions and temple histories of the Tamils, which then found their way into the Sinhalese storytelling tradition.
Henry thereafter examined references to Ravana in Sinhala poetry, drama, fiction from the late 19th century onwards. He found that Ramayana appeared alongside Buddhist themes in the Sinhala literature of the late 1800s.
Ravana Rajavaliya was one of the products of this period. This manuscript was found in Vegollakada temple, Mahapatana korale in Hurulu palata. It was written in 1886 by Halmillawe Ukkuwa Pendiya .In 1896 HCP Bell got it copied and it is now in the Museum library. This manuscript showed, among other things, that the period before Vijaya was known as the Ravana period in the oral tradition. [1]
This Ravana momentum continued into the 20th century . Hela Havula gave great emphasis to Ravana. The Hela Havula movement was a very influential movement in the 1940s. I recall that in the mid or late 1940s ,when I was a child, I was given an illustrated Sinhala story book on Ravana and his Dandumonara yanthraya .It made a great impression on me and I remember it to this day.
Interest in Ravana seems to have occurred in bouts. There was an extensive interest in Ravana in the 1980s especially around 1987. Gananath Obeyesekere noted that in 1987, people living near Sigiriya spoke of Ravana and Sigiriya. Mirando Obeyesekere published Ravana King of Lanka, in 1980. Arisen Ahubudu staged the play Sakvithi Ravana in 1987. A large Ravana statue was built at Kataragama in 1987 by President Premadasa.
Ravana came into prominence once again, when the war ended in 2009 .There was increased interest in Ravana in post-war Sri Lanka. Popular songs, films, plays, television series, social media, and historical narratives on Ravana, have gained unprecedented popularity in 21 century Sri Lanka , observed Kanchuka Dharmasiri In her paper Remaking and Trans-creating Ravana in Contemporary Sri Lanka,”(2020 ). There are references to Ravana on various on-line platforms, by amateur and professional scholars, observed Henry. There are You Tube channels on Ravana.
The 21st century saw a ‘Ravana revival’, where Sinhala Buddhists claimed Ravana as a distant ancestor and founder of the island’s monarchy. The idea however dates back to the late nineteenth century, said analysts.
There is an increased interest in Ravana among Sinhalese Buddhists in post-war Sri Lanka (after 2009), observed researchers.Ravana supporters who emerged after 2009, say that the Lanka that Ravana ruled over in the Ramayana is our Sri Lanka .
Ravana is considered Sakvithi Ravana or universal monarch. Thanks to this, Ravana supporters see Sri Lanka as the centerpiece of the world, a chosen country, and the cradle of civilization, observed analysts.
The notion that Ravana was a real king, who ruled in Sri Lanka, means firstly, that Ravana’s kingdom of Lanka was far larger than the island of Sri Lanka. This means that ancient Sri Lanka was a lot bigger than present day Sri Lanka.
The Lankavatara Sutra , which is part of a set of Mahayana sutras written in the fourth century, and discovered in Japan, says Ravana’s Lankapura was civilised and prosperous. Accordingto the Lankavatara Sutra, the city was protected by a roof decorated with gems. Also it says that it was Ravana who owned and used the first aircrafts of the world. Ravana brought Dipankara Buddha and his companions in the pushpaka, afloral chariot that becamealso known as aerial car, to Lanka.
Therefore belief in Ravana means belief in a technologically advanced Hela nation (extending its influence across the earth and even beyond) and Ravana as king of Lanka who is the progenitor of the Sinhalese, said analysts. Also Ravana period was a very prosperous one in Sri Lanka.
King Ravana was skilled in four things, medicine, martial arts, aircraft and music. Ravana is considered to have excelled in medicinal skills and has invented medicines. Munidasa Kumaratunga, head of Hela Havula, claimed that Ravana had written medical books such as Nadi Pariksha, Arka Prakashata, Uddisa Chiktsaya, Oddiya Chikitsa, Kumara Tantraya and Vatina Prakaranaya in Sinhala, which were translated into Sanskrit.
The local martial art, Angampora, has been linked to Ravana by its present day exponents. But the item that has received the most attention and is best known is Ravana’s flying machine or Dandu monara. This has captured the imagination of the Sri Lanka public regardless of whether they believe in Ravana or not. When Sri Lanka launched its first satellite to outer space as a part of its first space mission in June 2019, the satellite was named ‘Raavana 1.’
It is argued that academics are avoiding the subject of Ravana. Mainstream academia has not done enough to convincingly answer the questions many islanders continue to have regarding their origins and their past, said Henry.
That is not so. Academic historians commented on the Ramayana long ago. They see no reason to comment on it again. They see Ramayana as a piece of fiction, an epic created in India. Ravana and the rest are characters in this foreign epic. Even as fiction, Ramayana Lanka is not our Sri Lanka. There is no concrete evidence for Ravana in Sri Lanka either. This means that there is nothing for the historians to work on.
Analysts note that while the professional historian is silent on the subject of Ravana, amateur researchers have stepped in and have provided all sorts of imaginative pseudo historical information on Ravana. These have gained acceptance in certain circles. The general public is unperturbed. All sorts of relgiouis cults are taking root in Sri Lanka. The public are now quite used to this and do not take action against them unless absolutely necessary.
On the other hand, the west, specifically USA is interested in the Ravana cult in Sri Lanka .Justin Henry said his interest in Ramayana was roused when in 2008 he was asked as a Masters student at Cornell University, USA whether there was a Sinhala Ramayana.
The American Institute of Sri Lanka Studies which is based in Colombo had a workshop, in July 2016 on ‘The Presence and Absence of the Ramayana in Sri Lanka’. Deborah de Koning was affiliated to the American Institute for Sri Lankan Studies when she first came to do field work in Sri Lanka on Ravana in 2016. In 2019 one issue of South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies was devoted to the Ramayana in Sri Lanka.
The west was interested in Ravana because Ravana gave added strength to what the west called the-hegemonic-Sinhala-Buddhist-ethnonationalist-perception-of-Sri-Lanka-as-a -Sinhalese-Buddhist-country.
Deborah de Koning said fuelled by triumphalist feelings, the position of the Sinhalese Buddhists in Sri Lanka as the rightful owners of the country should be (re-)affirmed in every possible way.
While Sinhalese Buddhist ethno-nationalism was never absent at time of the civil war, the civil war has functioned as a period of disruption with the final defeat of the LTTE as an important watershed to restrengthen the position of the Sinhalese Buddhist majority.
The position of the Sinhalese Buddhist majority was extensively challenged– not at least in the international sphere – during the civil war. Sinhalese Buddhist ethno-nationalism is facing an important period of revitalisation based on the triumph over the LTTE, and the post-war Hela–Ravana representation of the past gives them credentials(more than the Mahavamsa-inspired perception of the distant past) to strengthen their position as rightful owners of the country, concluded de Koning.
the Origin story” of the Sinhalese up to now was that Sinhalese were considered the descendants of Vijaya who arrived on the island around 2,500 years ago, said Dileepa Witharana in his paper Ravana’s Sri Lanka: Redefining the Sinhala Nation?”
In the last one and a half decades there have been attempts to replace this narrative with another narrative. This new narrative says the Yakkha king Ravana who ruled Lanka 5000 years ago, was the originator of the Sinhala nation, not Vijaya. That pushed the origin of the Sinhala race further back.
This notion that Sinhala are descended from the Yaksha tribe of Ravana is a significant rupture from the traditional view that the Sinhala were descended from Vijaya. It helped the Sinhala strengthen their position as rightful owners of the country, said analysts.
All this alarmed The Tamil Separatist Movement who promptly stated that Ravana had been claimed by the Tamils of Sri Lanka long before the Sinhalese got hold of him. This claim was not presented as shared history but as an opposing claim.
Pathmanesan Sanmugeswaram, Krishantha Fedricks and Justin Henry (University of Kentucky,) in their paper Reclaiming Ravana in Sri Lanka: Ravana’s Sinhala Buddhist Apotheosis and Tamil Responses” observed that both the Tamil Saivas and Sinhala Buddhists claimed Ravana as their ancestor.
In August 2023 MP Buddhika Pathirana presented a private member proposal in Parliament, calling for an expert panel to conduct research on the mythological King Ravana.
The MP noted that despite the absence of archaeological evidence confirming the existence of King Ravana, Ravana holds a revered status as a deity among certain Sri Lankans. Research could unveil details about a historical period that has long been forgotten in the country’s history.
The House was divided when it debated on the motion, reported the media. Both Tamil and Sinhala MPs claimed ownership to Ravana with their own historical and mythological versions. A group of Tamil MPs suggested that an archaeological study, with international experts, should be carried out to ascertain the truth of whether King Ravana was a Tamil or Sinhalese king.
The media report observed that the Department of Archaeology had officially announced several years ago that there is no historical evidence to support the existence of King Ravana as an actual historical ruler or the existence of a ‘Ravana era’. They concluded that Ravana is a fictional character. (Continued)