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Empiricism and Sri Lankan
Buddhist tradition After reading the article by Prof. Carlo Fonseka on Buddhism and Empiricism published in "The Island" of twentieth May a number of questions came to my mind. After all questions come to your mind and not to your sense organs even though the mind works in collaboration with the sense organs very often. However I have not much of a quarrel with Prof. Fonseka’s conclusion that Prof. David Kalupahana and his (Kalupahana’s) Ph. D. student Dr. Asanga Tilakaratne have "failed in their enterprise of convincingly demonstrating that Early Buddhism comprises wholly empirical human knowledge". I have read the latterās "Nirvana and Ineffability" and I hope to enter into a discussion with him on its contents in the "Divaina" in the near future. In the meantime I would like to add my two cents worth on Empiricism and the Sri Lankan Buddhist Tradition. Empiricism as a western Philosophical tradition could mean different things to different people. It is mainly studied in opposition to Rationalism and has many off shoots or even "parallels" such as Positivism, Utilitarianism, Pragmatism, Empirio Criticism, Logical Positivism etc. All these finally deal with questions such as "what is knowledge", "what are the criteria which separate knowledge from, shall we say, non-knowledge", "how do we acquire knowledge". Here knowledge is sometimes interpreted as true knowledge. All forms of empiricism start with sense perception. For example A. J. Ayer in his Philosophy in the Twentieth Century says, "but overall it is the mark of an empiricist that he looks to sense perception, if not as the sole legitimate source of any true belief about the Īexternalā world, then at least as a final court of appeal which any acceptable theory must satisfy. The stumbling - block for any one who holds a position of this sort is the development of the pure sciences of logic and mathematics, which seem to posses a security which sensory observation could not bestow on them". Unlike the rationalists the empiricists do not accept a priori knowledge and to them no knowledge is possible without experience. However experience is not a concept well defined in empiricism. It may sound strange but when one talks of sense perception one does so as if no conception is involved. When an empiricist says that only the sense perceptions constitute true knowledge what does (s)he mean? Of course, by this statement, (s)he would mean that there is no "substance" beyond the sense perceptions as a substance cannot be experienced. But the role of the mind is not clear in this experience. According to Hume the "perceptions of the mind" are divided into "impressions" and "ideas". The impressions are immediate whereas the ideas are derived from the impressions. But what is mind? Following the rationalist Descartes, an empiricist cannot claim "cogito ergo sum" ( I think, therefore I am). How does one perceive (or conceive) the mind? It is in order to overcome such dichotomy that the empirio criticists, and especially Earnest Mach, begin with what are called elements (of sense data). However Machās elements do away with the physical and mental parts instead of trying to combine them. It is impossible to construct an epistemology with strict empiricism. Let us assume that the sense perceptions are the only legitimate source of knowledge. The first question to be asked is what is meant by legitimate assuming that we know what sense perceptions are (with or without conceptions) ? Are we to take this statement as a definition of "real" and reality. If not how are we to arrive at a concept of a reality(or no reality) and an external world only from sense perceptions? On the other hand if we are to explain observations (sense perceptions) only through observations we will not be able to explain anything. We can only state our observations. One has to smuggle in (or interject) other concepts before an epistemology is constructed. For example by taking the sense perceptions to be the only source of knowledge causality cannot be understood. Hume realised this problem and all that he could do was to say that there is no such thing as an impression of a causal relation. But are we satisfied with that state of affairs? Even if one is only sceptical about causality one has to do away with cause and effect (hethu-pala) and the paticca samuppada ( I am not happy with the English translation and I will stick to the Pali term). It is true that Hume has denied a soul in his empiricism, but that does not mean that we should embrace his empiricism without a causality. We cannot have double standards and say Hume is such a nice chap that by denying a soul he has either upheld or come close to Buddhism and then try to show that Buddhism is empiricist forgetting conveniently Humeās views on causality. Equating parts of Buddhism with parts of other isms is very dangerous to say the least. Even Machās empirio- criticism is not Buddhism. Mach believed in his elements as if they were real. He objected to the concepts such as atom, inertial frames, inertial mass on the grounds that they are not observables. To him tables and chairs were real, in the sense that they exist but not atoms. But physics does not distinguish between electrons and tables. What I am trying to say is that positivism and especially empirio - criticism, unlike pragmatism emphasise too much on sense perceptions. To a pragmatist tables as well as electrons are Īrealā or constitute true knowledge. According to the pragmatist James Ītrue ideas are those that we can assimilate, validate, corroborate and verify. False ideas are those that we cannot.ā The so called father of pragmatism Peirce says, "truth is essentially a relation between two things, an idea, on the one hand, and a reality outside of the idea on the otherā. However the reality of the pragmatists is not the same as that of the realists. James explains the difference in the following words. " Truth here is a relation , not of our ideas to non-human realities , but of conceptual parts of our experience to sensational parts". Further he has said Ī an idea is true so long as to believe it is profitable to our livesā. Our lives means only the lives we spend, here and now, on the earth and has nothing to do with the samsara. Truth of the pragmatists are about verifiable statements and are defined with respect to the present life between birth and death. It is not correct to compare the verifiable statements, which if work, are profitable to our lives, with the paticca samuppada. Moreover the logic of paticca samuppada is cyclic whereas all types of western empiricists and rationalists employ linear logic starting with a first cause or axiom(s). To the Buddhists other than Nibbana the rest are sammuthi sathya or "conventional truths". These are relative truths and are constructed due to avidya of anicca, dukka, anatta. (very often translated as ignorance of impermanence, suffering and soulless giving the impression that they are also concepts). A Buddhist unlike an empirio-criticist would not distinguish between an electron and a table. They are both sammuthi sathya and unlike the pragmatists the Buddhists would not introduce a dichotomy between the conceptual part and the sensational part of experience. Also the Buddhist life is directed by the noble eight-fold path and a Buddhist would not think of any other profitability. As far as a Buddhist is concerned the present life is not the only life and it is defined or has a meaning with respect to the samsara. In Locke’s empiricism the mind is a "tabula rasa" like a white paper without any marks. It is with the sense perceptions that the mind acquires everything else. The role played by the culture in acquiring knowledge is devalued in this formulation. A childās mind exposed to sense perceptions in different cultures will respond, or let us say register the marks, in different ways. In Lockeās empiricism as well as in empiricism in general sense perceptions are treated as if they have absolute properties independent of the culture. Moreover the Buddhists do not consider the mind as a "tabla rasa" as they believe in the bhavanga cittas and the patisandhi cittas. Philosophies like other systems of knowledge are culture dependent. The concepts of pragmatism, empiricism as formulated in the west have been in the western culture from the very beginning. What the Philosophers and the other intellectuals in a particular culture have to do is to refine the concepts in their culture, construct theories and create new knowledge or assimilate into their culture the knowledge that exist in the other cultures. That is what the western intellectuals have been doing during the last few centuries. For example take the word sensibleā in the English language. Anything sensible is taken roughly to be meaningful, practical etc., in that culture. What the pragmatic philosophers have done is to refine this vague concept that is found in the Anglo Saxon cultures. Is it possible to translate the word sensible into Sinhala giving the same connotations? I doubt very much. On the contrary we have the expression "engata nodenenne" or without the body knowing. We, especially our politicians, can do so many things without the sense organs "knowing anything about" what is being done. Then we have philosophers like Hume and Mach. It is said that Mach knew Buddhism and was in communication with a Rev. Bhikku in Galle. In fact some people believe that he lived like a Buddhist. In the case of Hume it is known that while he was in France, he had come across some Jesuit priests who knew Buddhism. It is my conviction that both Hume and Mach had attempted to assimilate Buddhist concepts into their cultures. Empiricism of Hume and Empirio-criticism of Mach can be considered as the result of assimilation of certain parts of Buddhist knowledge into western philosophy. However they retained the essential western characteristics in their philosophies. Western science which itself is a product of the western culture, and only one science among many, has influenced western philosophy and vice versa. However it is not correct to say that western science and mathematics developed because of the pragmatic approach. Prof. Fonseka claims that positivism has been regarded as a philosophical defence of science and mathematics as the supreme ways of exercising human rationality and gaining knowledge. If he had read his Russell carefully he would not have made this claim. I have already quoted a statement by Ayers, according to which, the development of mathematics took place outside empiricism. In fact according to the positivists mathematics is only a set of tautologies of the form Īmen are menā. However what is not explained within the western philosophy is the remarkable success of mathematical applications in physics. Logical analysis within the western philosophy attempts to solve this problem but without much success. Finally I come to the question of the Sri Lankan tradition. Why is that no real philosophy is done in Sri Lanka and perhaps in India as well. Why are not we creating new philosophy within our traditions? We are only interested in interpreting our ancient philosophical knowledge to the westerners in their categories. We are only supplying them with the knowledge created in our cultures so that they can assimilate that into their system if they wish to do so. I do not consider that as a Sri Lankan tradition. That may be called the Sri Lankan university tradition which in general is a third rate imitative tradition. We have to recreate our tradition, and I know that it is not an easy task in the face of ongoing cultural colonialism. Prof. K. N. Jayatilleke at least stopped at abhinna (so called paranormal) and did not want to reduce that too to western empiricism and then to western science. Some people would very much like to show that Buddhism is scientific, meaning western science, by trying to establish some superficial relationships between parts of Buddhism and western scientific theories. As Prof. Fonseka himself points out they do not realise the inherent danger in their approach as the theories are replaced by new theories they would have to discard Buddhism as well. I have not read the criticism by Bhikku Bodhi of Dr. Tilakaratneās work. According to Prof. Fonseka Bhikku Bodhi is of the opinion that Drs. Kalupahana and Tilakartane are seeking to assimilate Buddhism into Anglo- American empiricism and positivism. With all due respect to the Rev. Bhikku I am afraid I cannot agree with that opinion. I doubt very much that they are capable of doing that. People like Hume and Mach did that. What these two gentlemen are doing, like many other locals employed in the western universities, is to look at certain parts of Buddhism through the tainted glasses supplied by the west. They are not much different from those who try to show that Buddhism is scientific. Prof. Fonseka further says that Rev. Bhikku has expressed his fear that this enterprise might reduce Buddhism to little more than a system of ethical culture and mental training based on an especially insightful psychology. Then the Prof. goes on to say "If that indeed is where modern philosophizing leads Buddhism, so be it". As long as the Buddhists are aware of what is happening we do not have to worry about the end result relative to the western tradition. We have to educate the Buddhists that western science is only another science and that western philosophy is only another philosophy. When Prof. Fonseka says "if that indeed is where modern philosophizing leads Buddhism" he is referring to one brand of philosophy. His so called modern philosophy is nothing but the modern western philosophy and surely it is not the only yardstick against which judgement can be passed on Buddhism. Is Buddhism in decay? About 50 years ago, I had the rare fortune, to meet Osbert Moore and Harold Musson who came to Sri Lankan on an exploratory visit to study Buddhism after they had spent three months in India learning the teaching and practice of the Ramakrishna Mission and being dissatisfied. As I recall, Moore was a high executive with the BBC in London, senior to Dodd who was then Head of our fledgling Radio Ceylon Commercial Service. Musson was a very rich idle young bohemian in the wine-women-dance circuit. The two friends had met in the secret service during the world war and I think both were from Cambridge. Their war experience and the kind of purposeless lifestyle afterwards led them to seek escape from all they increasingly found to be unsatisfactory and trivial. They had experimented with yoga in the foothills of the Himalayas and now wanted to give Buddhism a try. On the advice of Prof. Gunapala Malalasekera, they went to the island Hermitage at Dodanduwa to study under Ven. Nyanatiloka, the German high priest. My parents, chiefly my mother Clara Heendeniya and some influential ladies had by then formed the Kantha Sasanadhara Samitiya, a women's organisation to serve the needs of the monks living in the island owned by Lady A. E. de Silva. So it is to my parents that I owe the chance of a lifetime to meet a few learned and pious Buddhist monks such as Nyanatiloka and his pupils Nyanamoli (Moore), Nyanavira (Musson), Nayanaponika, Soma, Kheminda; and more recently the late Walpola Rahula. I graduated in 1958 and the following year went as MOH Hambantota where fortuitously Nyanavira was living in a one-room but, 13 miles away at Bundala, said to be an ancient village of the washer-caste from the time of Duttugemunu. Nyanamoli suffered a chronic bowel disorder - probably ulcerative colitis - and found the dry climate comfortable. The house was designed by him with a room, a stone bed and a long corridor for walking meditation. All around it was virgin thick jungle with wild elephants, leopards, serpents. For a time, he went round the few very poor villagers begging for his noonday meals until the people pleaded with him to stop it because of the risk of walking alone. They organised to give his food on rotation and did it with utmost love and piety. Meanwhile, Nyanavira's mother heard about the extraordinary, and as she thought the bizarre change of her only son and heir and came to take him home. She was for example aghast to see him eat food with his hand from a bowl (at Vajiraramaya) and flew home to London in great sorrow. Within two weeks, she died. Nyanavira returned to Bundala and continued to meditate as much as 14 hours a day until he had to be brought to Colombo for an operation for bursitis of both knees. Another time, during the height of the drought, I found him bathing at a culvert in a pool of water slaked with mud. Shortly afterwards, he had to be treated for lumps of inspissated mud in the ears! As I now remember, the last time I met him at Bundala was to inform him of the sudden death of his friend Nyanamoli. Nyanamoli more or less never left the island hermitage until he had finished his magnum opus - the translation into English of the Vissuddimagga (The Path of Purification). He then decided to go on a pilgrimage to Yapahuwa with another resident monk and my father set them off by train from Fort. None of the monks of the hermitage handle money (as forbidden) and all money matters had to be arranged by others. So when my father inquired from Nyanamoli: Sir, when are you returning? he asked in turn, with his characteristic smile and humour, 'Bertie, how do you know I am coming back?'. Nyanamoli died from a heart attack, as he knew he would, on a desolate gravel road in our backwoods, about 25 years after walking lush carpets of the BBC. My mother had sent me a telegram to inform Nyanavira. It had been my habit to meet him around five in the evening when the heat was comfortable with a setting sun. I parked the car on the road because there was nowhere else. In any case there were no cars going down the road which ended in a fishing wadiya. It was around 3 in the afternoon when I got down from the car and walked silently through the narrow jungle track watching out for wild elephants. Half way, I was surprised to meet Nyanavira in a small clearing. He was dyeing his robes in a pot over a crude fireplace. The first thing he asked was: Kingsley why are you coming at this hour? I was then in my late twenties and he in the late thirties. We were like ordinary friends and I stupidly began a roundabout conversation before breaking the news. He continued to dye the robes and interrupted when I began to bumble: Have you come to tell me that Nyanamoli is dead? The casualness with which he said it hangs in my memory. He then explained that his friend had written to him before leaving on the pilgrimage leaving instructions to dispose of his meagre things and attend to some private matters. Nyanamoli had a premonition of death. I could not take Nyanavira by car to Colombo because of my work and I asked if he would travel by bus that same evening. He promptly got ready carrying somethings in his begging bowl and we walked back to my car. In the distance we saw two wild elephants and he said what had never struck me. He said, most of us humans spend our life doing things only to escape from boredom. Animals are never bored. He next gave me a strange advice, knowing me as he did. I had just got married and he asked me not to read the Sutras because I would then leave the lay life! I have not read them to this day. The bus to Colombo starting from Tissamaharama was crowded at Hambantota with only standing room. Without hesitating, this once millionaire Englishman, Cambridge scholar in mathematics, got into the bus after I paid his fare, and stood six and a half feet tall with the begging bowl slung over the shoulder and a farewell to me. I asked a passenger if he could undertake to drop Nyanavira at Bambalapitiya and send him to Vajiraramaya by taxi if I gave him the fare. This man immediately gave his seat to Nyanavira, refused my money and said he would be honoured to do as required. I could not attend the funeral of Nyanamoli and neither did I meet Nyanavira after that because I went on transfer as DMO, Kahatagasdigiliya in Anuradhapura shortly afterwards. Venerable Nyanavira made no attempt to teach me the dhamma. Even now I know precious little. Instead, he gave me the fundamental insight into what the Buddha taught which has since enlarged by extensive conversations with Walpola Rahula. I now write to discuss whether the teaching of Gautama Buddha is in decline. The biographical anecdotal sketch is the backdrop to my perceptions. I may be wrong. We have facets to our personality and like some ordinary folk mine range from the sublime to the profane. I begin with a remark by Ven. Nyanavira when one evening I told him that the privenas were to be changed to universities for the education of bhikkhus. He immediately made a sad prediction: it is the beginning of the end of Buddhism in Sri Lanka! Not many years later, I saw the rudiments of the appearance of that prophesy. Those days, newspapers published the full results of all university examinations and I was ashamed to find that most of the students who had failed in Buddhism as a subject for the finals were Buddhist monks! The situation is probably no better 50 years from then. Ven. Rahula told me that most of the monks in the country do not know the dhamma He had a phenomenal memory of the Pali Sutras and could instantly recall abstruse passages to enlighten a discussion. May be Rahula was unhappy with the prevailing standard of scholarship and the depth of understanding of bhikkhus and others, here and abroad. So far as I know, the Buddha did not encourage the acquisition of knowledge. The Noble Eightfold Path begins with Right Understanding. During his years of peripatetic teaching, the Buddha did not teach like a professor would, from beginning to end. Several persons are said to have instantly attained high states of transcendence after the Buddha gave them insight. Listening to many eminent scholars and reading them, I get the impression that on the other hand, they are repeating accurately what is in the books and the positions they take on such aspects as the results of deep meditation are hypothetical pronouncements of experiences they have never had and will never have. For example, Ven Rahula and others have told me that the study of Abidhamma is not relevant and only the Suttas suffice. But the great fashion and pastime these days is the teaching, exposition and debate about enormously difficult conceptual metaphysics and dialectic in a seemingly sure way that such philosophical understanding about the self, nirvana etc. is easy as eating cadjunuts. So why have there been no rahatans more or less after the passing away of the Buddha? Consider the following brief evidence of the decline of Buddhism as even the Buddha said all conditioned things are transient, including the teaching. * The majority of Buddhist monks do not practice what they preach and they behave as in a profession. Women are sometimes hired to cry at funerals. In a similar way, we 'hire' Buddhist monks to perform at bana preachings, so called 'all night' pirith ceremonies to commemorate the anniversary of building a house, of public institutions, business enterprises, a death etc. Attention to the arcane details of the ritual is the main interest in the proceedings. Even the priests are bored by it and take short-cuts in chanting. * Politicians are assured 'special effects' to protect and insure them in their ambitions, corrupt, criminal or immoral activities. Wide publicity and acclaim is given in the media to rituals such as offering trays of jasmines, dana ceremonies, presentation of hierarchical titles of originating and seniority in the hierarchy. Gullible people are thereby misled to believe that participation in them is a via media to nirvana, and * Rich persons, (crooked businessmen, drug dealers, criminals etc.) are encouraged to make donations to temples, the care and service of senior bhikkhus, build images and buildings in order to bring reward in the next life if not in this. Primacy of Buddhist practice is given to the collection, storage, transfer and transmission of something called ping or merit when in fact we should whittle away life's desires and let go everything. Buddhism as practised in the mass especially in the traditional Asian countries is no different in form to other religions that behove people to do good. I have heard it said that the teaching of the dhamma is for about 5% of the population. When Einstein published the theory of relativity only four of five people understood him, as it was when the Buddha first preached. The Buddha was a teacher par excellence and taught as he assessed people who came to listen. The objective focused on stopping the cycle of birth and death. He said that no one can help another to do it. Each for himself. The Buddha showed the way. Is the teaching and the practice of Buddhism at the present time pointing to that way? Tamil separatism and its propaganda Continued from yesterday He states that he is writing about the violence in Sri Lanka between the two major groups, Sinhalese and Tamils. He points out that Sri Lanka is not above such brutalities and that the Sinhala-Tamil violence should never be forgotten. ''One may never understand but one never forgets' (p 7) He has engaged in 'horror story collecting' and provides us with detailed accounts of the torture of Tamils during the riots of 1983. (p 139) . There is a description of an attack on a ''north eastern'' village by a gang of Sinhala youth. cp 203-206, 209) However, we must accept that there was violence against the Tamils and Daniel is perfectly entitled to document it. There is also the work of Bruce Kapferer. His imaginative thesis, is that the Sinhala Buddhist notions of destructive violence is due to their notions of the 'demonic''. They see the Tamil movement for a separate state as an instance of demonic behaviour, and react through violence. Tambiah sees Kapferer's thesis as implying a' deep seated powerful cosmology at work'' (Buddhism Betrayed. p 2) Kapferer started off as an anthropologist studying our healing rituals, where the various illnesses and psychiatric disorders are depicted through demons. He has extended that to the ethnic issue as well. These assorted writings reinforce the notion of the Sinhalese of Sri Lanka as a peculiarly volatile, violent people, with a distinct hatred for the Tamils. It is necessary to keep the notion of violence alive in the minds of the western audience because they have totally forgotten the ethnic riots of 1983. The west scarcely knows where Sri Lanka is, let alone who the Tamils are. Nobody is interested in the Tamil separatist movement over there. The westerners are interested in their own lives and in foreign events which relate to their own countries. It has therefore become necessary to keep emphasising anti-Tamil violence. Also when the Tamil separatist go lobbying in London, Boston, Paris and Ottawa, they need some seemingly impartial literature to support their arguments. Monographs like the ones discussed here, by western based anthropologists, published by prestigious academic publishers, may do the trick. The last group of items to be considered in terms of their propaganda value is the fiction based on Tamil separatists issues. Literature is a useful conduit for the subtle presentation of ideas. Creative English writing from Sri Lanka tends on occasion to take sides against the majority community. Sita Kulatunga's work, titled ''Diptych'' carries the following lines: 'The root of the house was blown apart. There were tiles, brick bats (sic) and dust burying the books on Meera's table, but not as bad as Selvam's house had been earlier when Sinhalese strafers had done it.'' ''Only yesterday that I heard Amalan relate how he was eye witness to an Indian Gurkha soldier raping a teenage girl. Once earlier he had said that he had seen a Sinhalese soldier doing it.'' (Channels. Vol 7 (1) 1997 p 14.) (I have committed sentences). There is one positive aspect regarding this literature. It is very good writing, excellently crafted. For tone and feeling, there is nothing to beat Shyam Selvadurai's 'Funny Boy' - The last story in the collection, titled 'Riot journal: an epilogue' is a first person account of the 1983 riots. It gives one a good idea of how the Tamils felt as regards the 'holocaust' and the 'diaspora'. It expresses the tension, fear, distress and includes all the relevant elements, including assistance from Sinhala neighbours. 'Something was different from the last time I was there. The house looked even more bare, even more desolate than before. Then I realised what had happened and I stared at our house in shock. Everything that was not burned had been stolen. I felt hot angry tears well up in me as I saw this final violation. Then for the first time, I began to cry for our house. I sat on the verandah steps and wept for the loss of my home, for the loss of everything that I held to be precious.' (p310-311) Selvadurai writes from experience. Non-Tamils far away from the events they depict have also written on the ethnic riots and the ethnic war. 'Kunapipi' is an Australian literary journal which features third world writing in English. In one issue it featured three contributions from Sri Lanka. They all dealt with the ethnic conflict, focusing specifically on the war in the north. This gives the impression that there is no other life in Sri Lanka apart from the terrorist issue. The three writers themselves are far away from the 'civil war' they depict. Thus giving some support to the nonsensical argument often invoked in literary assessments, that the Sri Lankan writer in English writes well only when he is commenting on some local calamity. Otherwise he has nothing to say. However, writes are entitled to choose their themes and their presentation. The three contributions are: Jean Arasanayagam's short story' I am an innocent man', Chandani Lokuge's 'A pair of birds' and a poem by Ashley Halpe, 'A threnody' (Kunapipi. Vol 15 (2) 1993) All three are excellent pieces and deserve to be included. Ashley Halpe speaks of 'new widows' 'new orphans' and of the 'maathrubhoomi'. Lokuge writes on the devastations caused to Tamil homes in Colombo during the 1983 riots. Jean Arasanayagam's story deals with the war in Jaffna. It is beautifully crafted. It uses a very difficult writings style, where highly cerebral description and highly emotive expressions are placed side by side. She weaves in a wide variety of elements not usually found together. Her story includes foreigners, terrorists, army, civilians, a teacher and a multitude of prawns. It refers to the massacre of civilians by the army, and also refers to foreign mercenaries working for the Sri Lanka army. (p5,12). The most substantial piece of writing is probably A. Sivanandan's 'When memory dies'. This is not available at present in our bookshops but there is a sizeable review of it in the newspapers. It is a longish, three part, three generational novel. The first generation is depicted by Saha a sub-post master, who moves from Jaffna to Colombo. His son Rajan, born in Badulla marries a Sinhalese from Anuradhapura. In the horrendous communal riots of 1958, his wife is brutally killed. Rajan has a foster son, Vijaya who joins the JVP. This Vjiaya is shot dead by Ravi, his half brother, who became a militant Tamil. The reviewer goes on to say 'With Vijaya we emerge into the full blaze of the political and communal scenario, its conflicts, roots and origins patterned into an intricate web as the story proceeds.' One notes, even from the review, the inclusion of events and items which have a bearing on the Tamil separatist cause. The setting includes Jaffna, Colombo, Badulla, and Anuradhapura. One character is called Vijaya. The reviewer quotes the following extract from the book: 'A stirring religious fundamentalism which is frightening, precisely because Buddhism was not a religion, had no God and because... of that had made... the nation its surrogate for God... it was from such closed circuits of passion that fascism drew its power. The Tamils were the first to be caught up in its force field...' The quotations given in this review, do not indicate an arresting style of writing. However the reviewer describes it as 'limpid poetic prose' with touches of cynicism and gentle humour. The book has won the prize for the best first book, in the Commonwealth. Writers Prize, (Eurasia region) for 1998. (Book review by Hussian Packir Saibo in Sunday Times. 8.3.98 p 6) In conclusion it is necessary to mention S. R. H. Hoole's 'The exile returned'. (1997) This is propaganda in reverse. It is a fictionalised but nevertheless highly critical account of the Jaffna Tamil Christian, of some aspects of the expatriate situation and also of the separatist effort abroad. This work will not please the Tamil community. But it has its value as ethnography and as comic writing. Hoole gives an interesting account of life in Jaffna, and the Tamil Christian community in the peninsula in particular. Some observations are educative, such as the use of water in Jaffna. 'In Jaffna no one wasted anything, not even dirty bath water'. It was dirested to the vegetable or fruit garden. (p 87) There are homely details. 'His mother had sent through him for his aunt, two bottles of gingelly oil, twenty drum sticks and a box of dark green Jaffna mangoes. These were the foods that every Jaffna man loved.' (p86) There are observations as to the Jaffna Tamil perspective on marriage and its prospects. Her makes very perceptive obsevations as to the manner in which these Jaffna Tamils make the transition to luxurious living in America. He also provides us with an irreverent account of the separatist activity in America. The racketeering and profiteering that such activities will fall prey to. Rajan Hoole is no maverick. He is deeply concerned about the rights of Tamils but he is also able to laugh at their weaknesses. 'The Exile Returned' is also a fine piece of comic writing. Far superior to the anaemic, narcissistic writing which often passes as good creative writing in English from Sri Lanka. It is utterly bawdy, rivalling the work of Carl Muller. It is more sophisticated, however. The ethnographic information is highlighted by regular references to the laws of Manu, using quotations of substantial length. These quotations are used to point out that several seemingly modern, emancipated practices of the Tamil Christians are in effect to Hindu practices. The observations are made without malice and the effect is hugely comic. Critical opinions as to the weaknesses of the 'Jaffna Tamil Christians' are presented in uninhibited forthright style. Paragraphs begin on a serious note and finish with a comic flourish. Here are four quotations which will appeal to any reader: 'This was Jaffna. There was mother's cooking. Relatives were there to help. There were no friends competing for status. This was truly home. But unfortunately for Tharmaratnam, he was at that stage of his life where he had to be in Colombo.' (p131) 'Mrs. Krishnanathan wanted a 'fair' daughter-in-law. ' Like many Tamil women she imagined herself to be lighter skinned than she actually was. She was in the habit of applying sandalwood cream to her face and lying in bed the whole afternoon with slices of cucumber on her face, in the belief that she would get lighter in complexion. With the same end in mind, a part of there make-up kit consisted of the creams Snow White, Hazeline Snow and Fair and Lovely' (p244) Here is Hoole on the topic of the konde. 'The normal bun that everyone wore was worn at the back of the neck. This is how Mrs. Amirthalingam wore it, choosing the anonymity that comes with being one more bun in a vast crowd of buns.' (p 259) Tharmaratnam, the hero of the story, was obliged to get married in a hurry as he had to return to England to continue his studies. The marriage licence got delayed. 'There was no grown up in the house to go and pick up the licence. Thus Thramaratnam found himself rushing on his bicycle to the Kachcheri. The licence collected, Tharmaratnam found himself cycling down the mahogany lined Kachcheri-Nallur Road, the walk path of the ancient Dutch Governors of Jaffna, to his wedding. As he bicycled, some in cars drove by to the wedding. One such car screeched to a halt and a puzzled friend asked him, 'The wedding is today isn't it'. Assuring him so without slowing down, Tharmaratnam got home cycling by the church as the puzzled guests who head arrived early looked on through the windows of the church.' (p225) This book is suitable for three sets of readers. Those who would like to learn something of the Jaffna culture and style. Those who would like to take a jab at the Tamil separatists. And those who simply wish to have a good read. The book is greatly weakened by an unsatisfactory ending. Concluded |
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