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Global Village: What’s Lanka’s contribution?Sachitra MahendraSome scholars predict Jackson Anthony’s ‘Aba’ will harm the image of Buddhist culture. With this in the backdrop, we could listen to a well-prepared speech by Anthony on a book launch by Nuwan Nayanajith at BMICH recently. Nayanajith launched his fifth book Gaddarika Pravahaya Hevath Sookiri Batillange Lokaya. Jackson Anthony’s bottom line was the Global Village concept. He raised the interesting question on why the popular concept was not titled ‘Global City’. The village, in the general sense, is a small group of people sharing each others’ belongings. The village in the ancient Sri Lanka consisted of agriculture and religion. This symbolised the richness of the Buddhist tradition. The Buddha ruled that any human being should be fed before preached, taking a hungry peasant for example. The ancient villagers had the financial freedom, hence they could spare enough time for religious and spiritual affairs. Long before the money-involved modern civilisation, the general economy was the barter system sharing goods and services. The village physician may provide his services for a portion of harvest of a peasant, for instance. We have got into the global concept now. Things have now become easier, thanks to the Internet and other convenient mediums available at hand. Now that money plays a major role in our lives, we have varying things to share. Each country, therefore, should have something distinctive to share with other countries in the village of globe. Japan has a Sumo tradition, and they say the British are popular for punctuality. What is our major contribution to the globe as Sri Lankans, save tea and garments? Our attempt to absorb the European education is hard, though we have hardly anything original in a European country. Our own traditions are what we are least concerned about. We consider Buddhism as an over-the-hill philosophy. We are concerned only about commercially-flourishing subjects like Information Technology. We have no base to argue against studying the subjects like Information Technology, though we should focus on our originality at the same time. When our own people give up Buddhism, many Europeans tread on the philosophy. Some even become monks, let alone accept Buddhism. Many Europeans have the fulfilment of basic requirements - just as the peasant who should be fed before preached - hence they are in a good mental position to absorb the deep philosophy. Why is Buddhism considered original in Sri Lanka? The Buddha was born in Nepal (an earlier part of ancient India) and he had visited Sri Lanka only thrice. However the philosophy was developed and nourished in Sri Lanka, not in Nepal. Even the foreign invasions did not affect the survival of Buddhism, because of devoted Sinhalese. Sri Lanka, in fact, is the living epitome of the ancient philosophy, which marks its unrivalled position in the ‘Global Village’. sachitra@gmail.com
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