KAMALIKA PIERIS

Deborah de Koning’s doctoral research was on Ravana in post war Sri Lanka. The title of her thesis is: Ravanisation: The Revitalisation of Ravana among Sinhalese Buddhists in Post-War Sri Lanka. The thesis is published online under the title: The Many Faces of Ravana (2021). The full text is available at https://pure.uvt.nl/ws/portalfiles/portal/59020919/De_Koning_The_Many_15_12_2021_incl_kaft.pdf

Deborah de Koning read religious studies with a focus on Hinduism and Buddhism at university. She did field work in Sri Lanka from 2016-2018 for her doctorate on Ravana in Sri Lanka.  She looked at many Ravana sites and selected two for case studies, Lakegala and the Sri Devram Maha Viharaya, Pannipitiya.

Sri Devram Maha Viharaya, Pannipitiya contains the largest Ravana shrine in Sri Lanka. Ravana rituals are regularly performed at this site. The Viharaya has a weekly Ravana puja and the annual Ravana perahera. The Viharaya attracted people with an interest in Ravana from all over the country. The secretary to the chief incumbent had previously lived abroad and was fluent in English, said Koning.

The chief incumbent, Ven. Kolonnave Siri Sumangala came from Matara to Colombo in the late 1990s.  The land at Pannipitiya was donated to him, and he built a small temple there in 1999. Today the temple occupies 16 acres.

A dayaka of the temple had told Koning that he became interested in Ravana when he worked under president Premadasa, who built a statue to Ravana. This dayaka, (unnamed) was   a member of the Ravana Shakthi group.The dayaka had suggested to Ven.Sumangala to build a Dutugemunu shrine, but Sumangala rejected the idea. He then suggested a Ravana shrine.

This dayaka, together with others, had been conducting rituals to Ravana at this temple. Then Ravana had revealed to them that he did not like the place where they had been conducting the rituals and that he wanted a shrine at the spot eventually selected for constructing a Buddha shrine.

The dayaka was able to convince Sumangala and soon after a Ravana mandiraya was built. The Sri Lankeshvara Maha Ravana Raja Mandiraya was formally inaugurated on September 19, 2013, by Mahinda Rajapaksa.  It was held later that the Ravana mandiraya was constructed at the spot where Ravana met one of the previous Buddhas, Kashyapa Buddha.

The temple has the Tripitaka inscribed in Sinhala script on granite stone slabs. Similarly at the corners of the Ravana mandiraya, there are four granite stone slabs equal to the size of the stone slabs on which the Tripitakais inscribed. The slabs are inscribed on both sides and contain fragments from Ravana publications by Suriya Gunasekere, Mirando Obeyesekere, Arisen Ahubudu and Ven.Sumangala. These slabs say, inter alia, that there were different types of airplanes that the Sinhalese were worshippers of the sun and that Ravana did not die but is only lying unconscious.

Analysts point out that the last observation is significant. Ravana could wake up one day, announce his presence and take over the leadership of the country.  On the other hand, Koning was told by the leader of an Angampora group who performed in the Ravana perahera that the Buddha prophesied that Ravana will return in 5,000 years as the future Buddha Maitreya.

When devotees visit the temple, they are met at the gate by volunteers who provide them with background information on the site. These volunteers explained that this temple is the only place where Buddha’s parents are venerated, there are several precious relics kept at the site, and that they could donate 100 rupees for the new stupa, which was at that time being built over the older one. The visitors received a receipt in exchange for the donation and a brick, which they took to the place where the new stupawas being constructed.

There is a weekly Ravana puja. The number of participants is relatively small, between ten and twenty-five people but the ritual itself is lengthy. It has to be conducted on Sunday evenings after 6:00pm exactly in the way it is prescribed by Ven. Sumangala by the dayaka and it takes around one to one-and-a-half hours, reported Koning. The Ravana puja is preferably sponsored by a devotee and the sponsorship is usually for legal cases, for children’s exams or to fulfill vows.

The nanumura ceremony of bathing and anointing is considered the most important part of the ritual and it precedes the Ravana puja. Nanumura takes place in the inner sanctum behind a closed door out of the sight. Only the lay custodian, his assistants, and the male sponsor of the puja are allowed to conduct the nanumura.  Women have to wait outside the mandiraya when the nanumura takes place. There is continuous drumming in the Ravana mandiraya till the nanamura ends.

The preparations start well before the actual Ravana puja. The chief dayaka and his assistants have to stay vegetarian on Saturday and Sunday, must take a bath, and change their clothes before entering the inner sanctum. They are dressed in traditional white clothes (sarong and shirt), cover their mouth and hair when they take the offering plates to the inner sanctum, and have the same appearance as a kapurala, recorded Koning.

For the nanumura, eleven liquids stored in large silver cups are used to bathe the statues.  The cups contain milk, king coconut water and water mixed with powders such as rice flour, red and white sandalwood. One empty cup is taken to the Saman/Vishnu mandiraya.

The cups are taken by the lay custodian, his assistants, and sometimes by the male sponsor of the puja inside the inner sanctum. There, they undress the first two Ravana statues and the granite statues are rubbed with sesame oil. Then the liquids are poured over the statues.

The liquids in the cups are used one by one to bathe the first two Ravana statues. Each liquid is first via a conch shell poured out over the large granite statue, then the same liquid is also via the conch shell poured out over the small black statue behind it, and last the liquid is again poured out over the large granite statue. Between the pouring of each liquid, the statues are in similar sequence cleaned with water. Finally the statues are rubbed with sandalwood and dressed in new clothes.

While they pour out the liquids, they chant gathas by which they invite Ravana to accept the offerings. The offerings are a plate with small cups  and with three oil lamps (ghee, sesame oil, and mustard oil), baskets with flowers, and two plates with nine different types of indigenous fruits (washed in turmeric water and cut into pieces) and nine different types of sweets . Often muruthen bath was brought from the kitchen and added to the offerings. The plates, covered with clothes decorated with svastikas, are then brought in procession from the kitchen to the entrance of the mandiraya.

The bringing of the offerings in procession officially marks the start of the Ravana puja. After the plates and baskets are placed inside the inner sanctum, the people are invited to sit down and liturgies are handed out. Together with the lay custodian, they chant the special Ravana songs composed by Sumangala .This chanting lasts for approximately half an hour, and it is followed by a word of thanks to the sponsor of the puja.

The chanting starts with such well-known Buddhist gathas as namo thassa and Ithipiso. This is followed by special Ravana gathas, poems, and invocations. These were composed by Sumangala and published in 2013. In these chants, multiple Ravana representations are referred to, such as the ten headed Ravana. Ravana is also treated as a    deity.   He is addressed as deva and deviyo.

The people outside the mandiraya are then asked to symbolically wash their feet with turmeric water, to enter the mandiraya, and to bow in reverence to the freshly anointed and newly dressed Ravana statues. After that, they are served the fruits, sweets, some of the liquids, and muruthen bath.

Ravana puja and Maha Ravana nanumura mangalyaya emphasized indigenous Hela practices and healing. The use of kola kenda and deshiya beheth kola revives indigenous Hela herbal medicine.

The Sri Devram Maha Viharaya organizes two major festival ‘weeks’ each year: one in September and one in March. The Ravana perahera is in March, together with Suddhodana Mahamaya perahera. The month of Medin was selected because the wedding of Buddha’s parents allegedly took place in that particular month. Maha Ravana perahera ritualizes the splendour and power of Ravana’s kingdom by including a ‘replica’ of the dandu monara and Angampora performances.

 Ravana statues are available for sale at the Viharaya. They depict the two Ravana representations that Sumangala actively promotes.  There is a large statue of Ravana as king available in grey/black stone colour and gold and the smaller statue of Ravana as rishi available in black, white, and gold.

The large statue bears the subscript ‘Sri Lankeshvara Maha Ravana.’ This statue shows Ravana with royal adornments. It is Ravana as king of Sri Lanka .The other statue depicts Ravana as a rishi. Maha Ravana Rishituma”. This statue shows   Ravana simply dressed and holding a cup. Sumangala links Ravana’s rishi doctrine to healing. The representation of Ravana as rishi is actively promoted at the Sri Devram Maha Viharaya.  

 Ravana   is also seen as the king of Lanka and the ruler of the   Hela inhabitant of Lanka. In the puja, it is explicitly said that Ravana is Sinhala and the ritual, with the chanting of Buddhist gathas, places Ravana in a Sinhalese Buddhist devotional framework.

Koning noted that the time frame   for Ravana at this temple was more in accordance with the Buddhist world view than with events in the Ramayana.  The Natha bodhisatta statue in the Vihara is also regarded by Sumangala to be Ravana in another incarnation. The idea that Ravana is a bodhisattais not widely shared, or openly discussed, noted Koning.  (Continued)