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Rev. Soma and the Hindu gods
By D. Amarasiri Weeraratne

Mr. B. M. Abeywardena of Battaramulla raises the question, "what is wrong with Rev. G. Soma’s sermons?" (Island 29/12/98). It is true that on the whole Rev. Soma’s sermons are good and educative with regard to some time honoured apostasies in Sinhalese Buddhism e.g. worship of Hindu gods and godesses. His exhortation to Buddhists to observe the Five Precepts, and confine their activities to the original and pristine Buddhism of the Buddha as found in the Sutras is commendable and praiseworthy.

Why then did the Advisory Council to the S.L.B.C. religious programmes admonish Rev. Soma to desist from treading on the religious susceptibilities of Hindus and Muslims by making derogatory remarks on Hindu gods and the Muslim practice of polygamy and desisting from family planning? He alleges that this will make the Sinhalese a minority in the future. The Advisory Council requested him to drop the objectionable racialist and chauvinistic features in his sermons. That was reasonable enough. But the Rev says he cannot preach as others want. A Sinhala only racialist organisation has put up posters saying ‘’lift the ban on Rev. Soma’s sermons’’. There was no ban on his sermons. He was asked to refrain from diatribes on Hindu gods, Satya Sri Sai Baba and railing against family planning by Sinhala Buddhists, bringing up the bogey of Muslim increase in population due to their polygamy and avoiding family planning.

The Sinhalese worship of Hindu gods did not start with the Nayakkar, Kings of Kandy and the Queens brought down from South India as ignorantly alleged by the Rev. Soma. This practice is as old as the Sinhalese nation. The Sinhalese were Hindus prior to conversion to Buddhism. The names like Siva, Naga, Giri, Kali are found in the inscription of Anuradhapura. The Sinhalese race comprises an admixture of Aryan Sinhalese with South Indian Dravidians and local aborigines. Our vocabulary customs, ceremonies, national dress, music, dancing, occult-practices, and names of people are heavily mixed up with Tamil borrowings. Our New Year is the Tamil New Year. The Dalada Maligawa is a Hindu kovil in all its practices and observances centered round the Tooth Relic. Therefore it is not strange that our religion should have borrowings from the Tamils. Kataragama God, Vishnu, Pattini, Kali, Aiyanayaka, etc gravitated to Sinhalese Buddhism from Hinduism. Sinhalese names like Appuhamy, Kone Peruma, Bandara have Tamil origins.

Rev. Soma asks us to drop the Tamil Hindu gods. He wants them replaced with Buddhist gods like Sakra, Brahma, Sahampath, Four Guardian gods, etc mentioned in the Sutra Pitaka. He does not seem to know that these gods are taken over from the Vedas, Upanishads, and other Hindu scriptures. So if Hindu gods were taken over and presented as devotees of the Buddha in the Canonical Buddhist texts, what harm is there in our taking over Hindu gods of the Tamils?

The Buddhist religion wherever it went took over the local gods and co-existed with them in peace and harmony. Thus Buddhism in China became an admixture with confucianism. In Japan it took over Shinto gods. In Tibet, Burma, Siam, etc it incorporated local gods and co-exist with them. Pure and pristine Buddhism of the Pali texts is not found in any country. Thus in Sri Lanka it is natural and to be expected that it has to incorporate the Hindu gods and accommodate them in the popular religions. Of course they are subordinate to the Buddha Dharma and the Sangha.

There have always been sincere Buddhist monks and teachers who have deprecated the incorporation of Hindu gods into Sinhalese Buddhist, e.g. the monks of the Kotte period were divided on this issue. At the start the Ramanna Sect monks refused to have Devales in their temples. They found it impossible to practice this in Sinhalese Buddhism. They caved in and went the way of popular Sinhalese Buddhism. So our good Rev Soma can fulminate and fume. He is free to do so. Ultimately it will be a cry across a desert and an exercise in futility. However if he can let him try and see whether he can expunge the Tamil Hindu gods from Sinhalese Buddhism as long as the Sinhalese are semi Tamils, culturally, linguistically and socially this will be a difficult task. I wish he take up the matter with the Mahanayaka triumvirate and get them to fall in line with him. At least let him presuade the Mahanayaka Thera of his sect who called for prayers to the gods to wreck the Indo-Sri Lanka Pact in 1989 to close down the Devale in the Amarapura temples.

The Culture Science
’98 — the year that was
by Bherunda

Bherunda once had a beloved teacher whose memory is treasured mostly for a simple formula he gave him in his schooldays on how to avoid forgetting the homework. This prescription has stood him in good stead not only in those early days but also throughout his hitherto life. The excellent counsel was to survey in the morning of any day what one did on the previous one and at the end of that day to meditate on what one should be doing the next day.

But throughout the years, committed to love this country and its people, Bherunda has gradually begun to feel and think that this formula would be equally profitable for a nation and particularly those in charge of its destiny. And since I count anyone reading this column among those included in the care-taker role, let me, in the morning of this year take a look back at the Year That Was, trying to learn from it what we may do tomorrow. In so doing, we shall ensure that we do not forget our Homework!

Needless to say, Bherunda is, of course talking about the Culture Scene both because that’s the scope of this column and because he believes that the cultural dimension is integral to the rest of the national life, ethical, economic and political and its dissociation from these other dimensions will have mutually retarding effects.

So here we are back: in 1998. It was an exceptionally memorable year. 1998 was the year of the 50th Anniversary of our Independence and the Government decided to celebrate it with a grandiose Cultural Pageant just as the then-Government did in 1948, the first year of Independence, by presenting the widely remembered "Pageant of Lanka". The proposed Pageant was, however, in the words of the Director General of the Tower Hall Theatre Foundation, its organizer, "not to be a traditional type of Pageant but a Documentary Dance - Drama, ... an attempt to look back into our history and to identify and highlight the main threads that run through the fabric of our society..... envisaging to invite the spectators to think and think hard while being entertained."

The quest fro freedom
‘The ablest talents’ in the fields of Drama, Dance and Music were mustered, directors, choreographers, actors, designers etc., etc., 800 in all. The Pageant was to be staged at the Bogambara Grounds on the 4th Feb. in the presence of our distinguished visitor Prince Charles. The bombing at the Temple of the Sacred Tooth changed all plans and the venue and the date were changed, the show being finally put on at the Jayawardhanapura Parliamentary Grounds weeks later, sans the Prince. The show ran from the early hours of the night to the wee hours of the morning, the audience dwindling proportionately from 2000 to 200. The live telecast fared no better

With its audience and many a viewer told Bherunda that they switched - off not only because it started late and went on long but the fare proved unworthy of sitting up for.

Bherunda, of course, sat through it all on the chilly Parliament Grounds, and he must say, frankly, this "Quest for Freedom" as it was called, fulfilled none of the good intentions declared at the outset. It dismally failed to supply the promised historical inspiration for the future, abandoning its superb theme for legend and superstition. If it made him think hard it was on the 8 million spent from the hard-earned money of the public. Attempts were also made to spend more money by transporting the giant to the outstations but were resisted by the artistes themselves.

In celebration, the State also sponsored a grand-scale Golden Jubilee Exhibition, depicting national achievements of fifty years of Independence in the spheres of politics economics, trade, industry and culture and in extreme contrast to the "Quest", drew vast crowds from town and village for several weeks.

Festivals
The Arts Council too joined the national celebrations by the issue of several publications, the one that deserved most to be mentioned is a collection of Short Stories "Thoragath Keti Katha", written during the fifty years. The Sinhala Drama Panel of the Council organized a Drama Festival Staging, what the Panel called the "Kadiyim Natya", Landmark plays of the fifty years.

Festivals are the ready formula of the Cultural Ministry and its step-daughter, the Arts Council. They provide an every source of additional income on overtime duty at the John De Silva Theatre to travel to which from Battaramulla, we understand, assures a subsistence payment as well .’ And so we had almost every Panel organising its Festival. The public retort was telling. The Ballet Festival, the Puppetry Festival, the Children’s Drama Festival, the Music Festival, the State Drama Festival, all of them, except the Children’s had meagre audiences, even the invitees being absent. Only on the peak day when K. B. Herat’s play Deveni Mahinda was staged was there house more than half full, in contrast to the overflowing audiences of the 80’s.

The tragic aspect of this audience - apathy was that there was a good helping of quality plays and quality acting. The participants of the Drama Festival showed much zeal, with the Short Play Sector unearthing some very exceptional creative and histrionic talent, Dananjaya Karunaratna with his Oba Sapekshayi" (You are Relative) emerging the winner. Another short play worthy of mention was" Tahanam Adaviya" (Forbidden Territory) by the Tamil Youth Visakesa Chandrasekeran dwelling on a terrorist experience. The Children’s Festival Winner was Palita Lokupothagama for his highly imaginative play "Amara Giya Divya Loke" (Amara went to Heaven).

Drama was in focus also at the National Youth Council which held its annual festival at Lumbini, exhibiting that the salient trends in Youth Theatre in 1998 was a shift from the political protest to themes protesting against traditional attitudes in sex. A special development of this trend was the play "Asammata" (Untraditional) which dwelt on the tragic plight of a young monk and his fiance entrapped in a sex-situation. Bherunda understands that the play was later banned by the PPB, thus raising the conflict of free expression and religious susceptibility.

Drama education
Despite the waning audience - interest, drama in ’98 was receiving the keen attention of the Educational authorities. ‘Drama and Theatre’ was introduced as a statutory subject for the GCE (O Level) Exams in additional to it being a subject for GCE (A Level) Exams. The Kelaniya University began special degree courses in drama while the Fine Arts Dept. of the Peradeniya made preparations for intensive drama courses in its curriculum. The Tower Hall Theatre Foundation concluded a drama course with a workshop conducted by specialists from India. The National Youth Council too began a drama school. Pasan Kodikara and D. M. S. Ariyaratna revived the Drama Bi-monthly "Preksha", scorning the discouraging destiny of drama periodicals in Lanka. Drama lost this year two of its educators in the demise of Charles Abeysekera and Prof. A. J. Gunawardena, enfeebling the local theatre’s critical tradition.

It was a salutory move on the part of the Drama Panel, become alive to the serious crisis facing the Sinhala Theatre, to summon in November an open discussion with theatre artists but it was unfortunate that theatre men missed the opportunity and instead entered a theoretical controversy. Thus the survival of the Sinhala Theatre remains at stake.

Literature
Come September comes the State Literary Festival 1998 saw a new departure in that the Sinhala, Tamil and English Literary Panels of the Arts Council held their Award Ceremony on the same platform on the same day. Despite, the usual controversies followed, not on literary questions but on procedural ethics. A welcome feature, however, was the surfacing of new names instead of the repetitive coterie. Sepali Mayadunne, Siri Senanayake, Nandana Weerasinghe won awards for the Novel, Short Story and Poetry respectively.

Another Literary Festival, this one sponsored by the Cultural Ministry, is a touring one, which holds seminars, workshops, exhibitions in all the outstations. The last was held in Matale this year and although the Ministry’s departure from its Colombo-centred activity is to be applauded, report has it that it is unpopular because the participants form one literary caucus .

The musical landscape
The State Music Festival held in March had no novel feature but we notice that something important is happening in the Music World of Sri Lanka. This is the emergence of Pradeep Ratnayake on the sitar and Thushara Ratnayaka on the violin. Bherunda had the privilege of being present at a Pradeepanjali and still carries resonant memories of an ecstatic evening of classical oriental music. Pradeep, however, displayed a fusionist interest in the second half oŁ his recital on whose success Bherunda has doubts, Bherunda believes that a bright future awaits Pradeep without resort to fusion. ’98 also saw the intensifying popularity of Gunadasa Kapuge, the vocalist of the down-trodden.

Dance world
In the Dance world too, there was seen a growing interest in the youth and therefore a natural interest in a break from tradition. What was interesting at the Dance Festival organized by the Dance Panel was an attempt by several young choreographers to create anew within the tradition. Meantime our best ballet-masters flew their dance ensembles abroad, returning with reports of rapturous receptions, leaving us poor Sri Lankans with no opportunity to witness the creations of our best dancing talent. Where at home can we ordinary citizens glimpse an authentic Turanga Vannama or Vadiga Patuna?

Two State projects of the Culture Ministry are concerned with regional and ethnic cultures and their Festivals were held at the John De Silva with much aplomb. Nothing better illustrated how the obsessive ethnic-consciousness of the PA retards a wholistic approach to Cultural Policy.

PRIVATE SECTOR
Outside the State too, a variety of cultural activities has been going on. The Sixth Independent Literary Festival was held in November and provided a splendid contrast to the State Festival. The political speech-making was refreshingly absent. Preceded by a zealous but sober participation in discussion of burning literary issues, its awards ceremony was held before a solemn audience waiting receptively to hear its prestigious verdicts. The two awardees were Ajith Tilakasena for his short stories and poet Parakrama Kodituwakku for his collection "Deviyange Minussu" (God’s Men who are plantation workers).

Another privately organized literary event was the Rasika Sambhashana held at Nawala where Sinhala and Tamil writers met in conference in an atmosphere of freedom and conviviality to deliberate literary issues great and small. The absence of formality was its unique feature. The event was arranged by the Writers’ Organization of Lanka which also holding its AGM resolved to agitate for the fulfilment of promises by the PA Manifesto — the establishment of a National Cultural Council, cautioning that the matter, ignored, will become an Election issue among literary circles.

Private sector cultural activity effloresced in the last three months of the year. A Sinhala version of the Greek classic that Aristotle described as the world’s greatest tragic drama "Oedipus Rex" was produced by Atula Peris and Lalitha Sarachchandra produced a Sinhala version of the Sanskrit "Ratnavali" of Sri Harsha. Jayalath Manoratna, following in the footsteps of the late Dayananda Gunawardana, produced a docu-drama on the history of the Sinhala Theatre. Somalatha Subasinghe celebrated the 100th Anniversary of Brecht with a Sinhala production of "Mother Courage". Dharmasiri Bandaranayake commenced rehearsals of the Trojan Women translated (1998) by Ariyawamsa Ranavira.

Butterflies
An entirely new theatrical concept for Sri Lanka, Psycho-drama was introduced by the Sunethra Bandaranaike Trust’s presentation of "Butterflies will always fly" directed by Wolfgang Stange and Rohana Deva Perera. Although drama as a therapy has existed long in our exorcist tradition, this was the first in our history that the scientific concept has been consciously applied for the physically and mentally disabled. More strength to your elbow, Sunetra.

Last, but not least was the holding of the second Ananda Coomaraswamy lecture after an interval of 8 years. Prof. Adrian Snodgrass’s lecture was on "Patterns of Symbolism in Traditional Asian Architecture" given before a full house of a select audience of scholars. The event was organized by the Institute of Traditional Studies funded generously and laudably by the Central Cultural Fund.

It must be remarked here that all these artistic and literary activities took place in an year of utter political and moral decline, when hooliganism was unabashedly practised in Parliament and political gangsterism became a feature of daily social life. The ethical life of the society had a simultaneous fall with the political culture, corruption seeping down to the bottom from high places, in the context of which it was heartening to find Avadhi still alive and awake in 1998. Equally heartening was the growing popularity of the brave Ven. Gangodavila Soma’s candid sermons, inspite of their shameful ban on Rupavahini State Television.

Cat’s Eye
Watching and combating –
Bigotry, intolerance and creeping fascism

In South Asia while we celebrate fifty years of independence and move towards the 3rd millennium, the forces of violence, ethnic hatred, prejudice, xenophobia, bigotry and misogyny are still with us. We strongly feel that they have to be opposed strenuously, at every level - and especially at the political level, since these forces of intolerance even try to influence state policies. To mount this opposition we have not only to be vigilant, but also have to closely watch and combat fascistic tendencies. Here, awareness at a regional level is necessary, for the dangers of contagion are always with us. What goes on in Pakistan and India are dire warnings.

The BJP Watch
Since the assumption of power by the BJP coalition in India, those interested in secularism, democracy and human rights have been on guard. Helping in keeping them alert is the BJP Watch, (available at BJP Govtwatch @ maroon.t.c.umn.edu.) and the journal Communalism Combat (sabrang @ bom2.vsnl.net.in) which document the many atrocious incidents in India in recent months by allies of the BJP, namely the Shiv Sena, the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), the RSS and the Bajrang Dal. The disturbing trends include:

1. Attacks by hooligans on Christian churches, schools, nuns and priests and on Indian Christians - 131 incidents in 1998 of which 41 were in Gujerat where the BJP rules and the Shiv Sena is active.

2. Dangerous xenophobia (morbid dislike of foreigners) warmongering and false patriotic euphoria over the Indian nuclearization policies, and the use of physical violence and threats to intellectuals opposing the nuclear tests.

3. Maligning progressive historians, removing them from the Indian Council of Social Science Research and the Indian Council of Historical Research and filling these prestigious organizations with "Hindutva" historians.

4. Re-writing Indian history with a Hindu bias, banning books, and (as in the UP) unsuccessfully trying to make Sarasvati Vandana (ritual invocation to the Goddess Sarasvati) compulsory in all schools.

5. Vandalizing the paintings of India’s foremost artist M. F. Hussein, and attacking his home because Hindu extremists disliked his portrayal of Hindu goddesses.

6. Vicious propaganda by extremists not only against secular forces, minorities, artists, and film makers, but even against India’s Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen, calling him an agent of Christian missionaries for advocating mass education, as well as attacks on both Sen and the Booker Prize winner. Arundati Roy, for opposing India’s nuclear tests.

7. Attacks by the Shiv Sena on the film "Fire" in Mumbai and Delhi which challenged patriarchal Hindu norms of sexuality. That the star of the film Shabana Azmi of Muslim origin, depicted a Hindu wife, was one aspect of the violent campaign. An earlier film "Bombay" about a Hindu-Muslim marriage led to rioting, and a new film "Zakhm" (a love story) by the famous director Mahesh Bhatt, set in the Hindu-Muslim riots in Mumbai has been heavily censored.

8. In Delhi last week the cricket pitch was dug up by Shiv Sena activists to prevent the Indo-Pakistan test matches being played. Earlier, there were threats by Bal Thakeray of Mumbai who failed to launch a movement to prevent the Pakistani cricket team playing "on the sacred soil of the motherland" Communalist attacks on the Muslim captain of the Indian team (Mohamed Azaruddin) calling him a Pakistani agent have also been frequently made.

Pakistan and Fundamentalism
In Pakistan too there are many alarming incidents including:

I. Killings and attacks on the Christian minority, stoning of churches and intolerance against the Christians alleging they are "anti-Muslim." The notorious blasphemy law has been used the most against the Christian minority who are often, poor sections of Pakistani society.

2. The banning of books thought to be critical of Islam.

3. Attacks on intellectuals and political activists who opposed Pakistan’s nuclear tests.

4. Attempts by the Nawaz Sharif government to return Pakistan to a strict Islamic code (the Shariat law) which gives the authorities the right to control freedom of movement and expression, police public behaviour and mete out harsh justice. Under the Shariat law there are several Ordinances particularly oppressive to women.

5. The move to bring to trial and sentence MQM activists in Karachi under direct military courts and the handing over of civilian functions to the army has caused concern. This has been challenged by Pakistan’s human rights groups and all those who are worried at the increased militarization of Pakistani society.

In a situation of serious economic crisis and a huge external debt the government is trying to distract and divert the population from the crisis by a resort to religious nationalism and intolerance. Despite all its rhetoric about being a nuclear power, the Pakistan government has abysmally failed to provide a better quality of life for its citizens.

LESSONS FOR SRI LANKA
Banning Books

We should take warning against the Talebanization of Pakistan and the Hindutva propaganda in India. In Sri Lanka too, alarming tendencies prevail among a small minority of intolerant bigots, hiding behind a facade of Buddhism, a religion which promotes tolerance. A few years ago, we witnessed the curious spectacle of a malicious and vicious campaign against the book Buddhism Betrayed? by Prof. S. J. Tambiah which led to the rallying of Sri Lankan intellectuals against the witch-hunt. Nevertheless the PA government, pressurized by certain Buddhist lobbies, took the un-Buddhist step of banning the book, inspite of opposition from intellectuals who support the PA.

Under pressure from some Muslim leaders in Sri Lanka (who do not represent enlightened Muslim opinion), books by Salman Rushdie (Satanic Verses) and Taslima Nasreen (Lajja) were banned and permission to film Rushdie’s Midnights Children by the BBC was withdrawn. The Constitution guarantees all kinds of freedoms including freedom of expression, but this is conveniently forgotten when a few fundamentalist paper tigers (and lions) wave their paws and blackmail the powers that be.

Witch hunt Against Academics and Feminists

The campaign of vilifaction against local progressive archaeologists, historians, political scientists, anthropologists and others has been going on for nearly 20 years. The grouse against them has been that they have distinguished mythology from history, questioned sources and traditional interpretations and have expressed different viewpoints on ‘sacred history’. In India, its most distinguished historian Prof. Romila Thapar and others