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LTTE fears army thrust on Mullaittivu
By our Defence Correspondent.The LTTE is bracing for a posible militay operation aimed at gaining ground towards Mullaittivu, and has begun building a line of defenses between Oddusudan and Mullaittivu, sources in the Wanni said.
These preparations come as the northeast monsoon rains die down slowly, after creating havoc in the north for nearly two months.
The rains, which began in early December, displaced nearly 20,000 people in the Trincomalee, Mannar, Mullaittivu and Kilinochchi districts.
The monsoon was also the reason for the ceasing of military operations since December 2, when the army captured Oddusudan, only 15 kilometers from Mullaittivu.
However, the Tigers’ plans to launch a counterattack before the army resumed the advance, were dealt a heavy blow when navy gunboats last week destroyed a convoy carrying supplies to Mullaittivu.
The LTTEās Voice of the Tigers this week admitted the death of their Batticaloa political leader, Lt. Col. Keethan, but said he died of illness, although he was clearly killed in battle, as we reported in this column (Jan. 16: Navy destroys Sea Tigersā most powerful warship, kills Batticaloa area leader.)
Hence the LTTE has been pushed on to the defensive, and Wanni sources say that the construction of lines of barbed wire and bunkers, and the laying of minefields, is going on in earnest just beyond Oddusudan. Civilians living in these areas have already fled on the orders of the Tigers.
Matters are rather complicated for the LTTE, since there are several roads leading to Mullaittivu, and they would find it difficult to defend all of them.
The main road is straight from Oddusudan to Mullaittivu, through Kulumurippu, a village that has now been abandoned.
Another smaller road stretches along the south side of the main road, linking army-held Nedunkerni with Mullaittivu, through the villages of Tanduvan and Kodalikallu. Several dirt tracks connect the two roads, so the army advance could swing from one to the other very quickly.
Unlike the illusory Main Supply Route (MSR) that the army has been trying to carve out to Jaffna, the town of Mullaittivu is of great strategic significance in both military and political terms. Hence the LTTEās anxiety to prevent it >from falling into army hands, or to delay that as long as possible.
Mullaittivu is the largest town presently controlled by the Tigers. Losing it would be a severe psychological blow to the entire LTTE. It is also the main town of the district. Only Kilinochchi is of comparable size.
Militarily, Mullaittivu was considered so vital that the army maintained a 1,200-man garrison there, surrounded by the Tigers and supplied only by sea, for seven years, until the LTTE overran it in July of 1996. The camp was the headquarters of an entire brigade, with artillery batteries and heavy mortars.
The town commands a vital location on the eastern seaboard, in an area which has long been used by the Tigers to bring in their arms shipments. If the army captures Mullaittivu, the main supply route of the Tigers would be cut.
The Mullaittivu coast has also long been the stronghold of the Sea Tigers. Bases such as Chalai, Chemmalai and Alampil, from which they set out to attack navy sea convoys, dot the coastline. If Mullaittivu falls to the army, Alampil and Chemmalai would have to be abandoned by the Tigers, since they would be surrounded. Only the bases north of Mullaittivu would remain, for the time being.
Perhaps most importantly, Mullaittivu sits astride a 125-kilometer long road which once linked Trincomalee to Jaffna.
In other words, there are alternative MSRās to Jaffna, which the Tigers are well aware of. One is on the West Coast, from Mannar to Pooneryn and across the Jaffna Lagoon by ferry. The other is from Trinco to Jaffna through Mullaittivu.
At the moment, the army controls a stretch from Trinco to Kokkutuduvai, which is about 50 kilometers, through Nilaveli, Kuchchaveli, Pulmoddai, and Kokkilai.
The Tigers control the rest. The road itself is no more than a dirt track, but it is usable, especially by heavy vehicles. It is far from ideal, since any vehicle would have to go across five ferries to cross lagoons which dot the sides of the road.
But it could still be an MSR. It could still be used to feed the 550,000 people in Jaffna.
Unlike the Kandy-Jaffna road, where the army tried to drive straight up, any thrust from the forces in Oddusudan would approach the road from sideways.
If the army captured Mullaittivu, nearly half of the 70-kilometer stretch which is held by the Tigers would fall into government hands.
Although this still leaves a long stretch, it would be far easier to capture than the Kandy-Jaffna road, since it is along the coast. Amphibious landings from naval warships could be made at any point along the road, and the Tigers would find it almost impossible to defend it.
It would also be far easier for the forces to defend this road against LTTE attack, than the Kandy-Jaffna road. With the sea on the east, only the western side of the road would have to be defended. Even that would be relatively easy, since two thirds of the way from Trincomalee would be protected by government territory extending west past the Kandy-Jaffna road.
Army defenders would also be secure in the knowledge that reinforcements would be with them within hours from Mullaittivu and Trincomalee, sent up the coast by sea.
Another point in capturing Mullaittivu would be the easing of LTTE attacks on every army camp from Trincomalee to Mullaittivu. Right now, all the camps are like isolated islands, especially at night, and small groups of Tigers sneak in every week and stage attacks, usually by laying mines or ambushing patrols. All this would cease.
If the army takes Mullaittivu, the LTTE link between the north and east would be almost wiped out. Tiger cadres would need to trek through a very long area indeed to get from the north to Batticaloa. New recruits from the east would have no way to get to the north.
For the army, there is nothing to lose in going after Mullaittivu, and everything to gain. For the Tigers, it could be another nail in their coffin.
The original people of Sri Lanka
By D. P. AgasthiyanIt is the lack of an unbiased and balanced approach to the ethnic problem in the past that has created racists and chauvinists on both side of the divide and brought the country to the present despicable and deplorable state.. This came about through a misguided and fanciful interpretation of the available historic data. Secondly it should be noted that the study of history must be for history and knowledge sake. History should never be didactic, nor should it be falsified and made into tools of politics. Nothing will be gained by bringing history into politics , especially, history of the hoary past where nothing definite is known. Hitler’s experience bears ample testimony to this fact. Nothing will be gained politically by arguing whether the chick or the egg came first. It will also not be practical or justifiable to settle one’s problems on the basis of "who came first" It will be best if our problems are settled on the basis of natural selections and from definitely known traceable periods and facts.
Primarily it has to be accepted that no in-depth - comparative and analytical - study of Sri Lankan history has yet been undertaken by anyone. Such a study will reveal the, right and whole history and also that if at all there was an original people, all traces of such people had vanished atleast about two thousand fivehundred years ago as they were absorbed by the Tamils and Sinhalese and sections of whom were reabsorbed by the two main streams, a process that is going on even today. One will also find that the history of both the Tamils and Sinhalese are thoroughly mixed up and intertwined. Hence it is felt that if the right and whole history of Sri Lanka is to be known one must adopt a very strictly unbiased and balanced approach, especially in today’s atmosphere , and look for external evidence also especially when the Tamils of both India and Sri Lanka had not left much permanent records of their activities. Further most of their records were destroyed by the inundations of the distant past, As against this it should also be noted that the Pali chronicles which deal with Sri Lanka conceal - intentionally or unintentionally — as much as they reveal - a fact accepted by all right thinking historians.
The available historical data are as follows:
The antiquity of the Sinhalese is taken up first.
(1) While it is a fact that the majority of the people of Sri Lanka today are Sinhalese, yet it has to be accepted that a very large number of them are descendants of South Indian Tamils who had come to the Island throughout the ages as peaceful migrants or South Indian warriors of Sinhalese pretenders to the Islands throne-or as warriors of Pandyan and Chola invaders who settled here and were Sinhalised during course of time. This never ending process of amalgamation which is going on even today should have originated from the earliest time, well before the coming of Vijaya. This is the only way to explain the presence of Tamil or Tamil derived words even in the Pali chronicles. Most of the ancient names of rivers mentioned in the Mahavamsa are Tamil words. e.g. Kadamba Nadi, Mahakandara Nadi, Gona Nadi, Gambira Nadi etc.,
(2) Prof. K. M. de Silva in his book " History of Sri Lanka" says that the Island was first populated by Aryans from the North West and North East of India. Yet he also readily admits that " we have at present no archaeological evidence with regard to the early Indo Aryan settlers. No sites have yet yielded data which could help us identify some of the other influences which had played upon the Island in the period from 650 B.C. In particular we have no archaeological finds that could be traced back to either the West or East coasts of North India" Infact, all that we have are finds that are traceable to a civilization congruous with - that of South India. The North Indian origin of the Sinhalese is based on myths, legends and traditions that crept in recently. But yet the Sinhalese call themselves Aryans.
(3) The Sinhalese language, because it contains a large percentage of Pali and Sanskrit derived words, introduced through the influence of Pali speaking missionaries and Buddhist chronicles is claimed to have originated from Pali and Sanskrit, without considering the fact that a very large percentage ,if not a majority of words are Tamil derived. A Sinhalese scholar- believed to be- Mudaliyar Gunaratne - in one of his research articles has said that if Pali was the father of the Sinhalese language then Tamil was its mother. He has also pointed out that in grammar the Sinhalese language is closer to Tamil than any other Aryan language. Further Prof. K.M.de Silva also in his "History of Sri Lanka" accepts that there was considerable Tamil influence in the vocabulary, idioms and grammatical structure of the Sinhalese language. Prof. G. C. Mendis in his book "Our Heritage" has said that if we shared the Sinhalese language of all the borrowed words we would be left with the core language, and that the closeness of this core language to a North Indian language would enable us to trace the area from which the language and immigrants came and that our knowledge of languages prevented us from coming to any conclusions. The position remains the same today too. From this statement it is obvious that no one had considered the closeness of this core language to a South Indian Dravidian language.
(4) The term Sihala is found in the Mahavamsa only in its first few opening chapters, where it is said that the followers of Vijaya were called Sihala because his father killed his father - a lion - and hence was called Sihabahu. But Sihabahu’s sister and queen, who played no part in the killing of her father, the lion, was called Sihasivali. Hence it has to be concluded that Sihabahu and Sihasivali were so called because they were the children of a lion - probably a bold and strong personality who lived in the jungles as an outlaw. Thus we find that the followers of Vijay were called Sihalas not because of the leader and founder but because of his father who banished them. This being a fanciful explanation one has to look for the origin of the term elsewhere.
The Mahavamsa does not mention the term Sihala or its derivations any further. Infact though the Mahavamsa says that when Mahinda introduced Buddhism in circa 250 B.C, he preached in the language of the Island. It does not say whether the language was Sinhala or Tamil. A liberal use of the term Sihala is found only in the Culavamsa which is said to have been composed in the 12th. C. A. D. Even the term Sihaladvipa is found only in the Culavamsa. We also find that both in the Mahavamsa and Culavamsa, it is the term Lanka which is almost always used to denote this Island. There are four or five occasions where the term Tambapanni - another pre-Vijayan term and a Pali corruption of the Tamil term Tamraparni - is also used. Tamraparni is the name of a region and a river in South India almost opposite Tambapanni of Sri Lanka, a village about 20 miles north of Puttalam. Due to the fact that Pali of that time did not have alphabets like "r", "v" etc. these alphabets in the term Tamraparni were replaced by consonants "b" and "n" respectively and thus the corruption Tambapanni. Thus it becomes obvious that the term Sihala and its derivatives gained currency only after the 5th/6th C.A.D and before the 12th C.A.D. It may also be noted that the excavations at Pomparipu near Tambapanni show some resemblance of a South Indian Megalithic culture.
(5) References to the Island of even the llth/12th C.A.D. in South Indian literature - a region with which the Island has had the closest and most frequent contacts, war or peace, show that the Island had been referred to as Eelam or Lanka, though there are references to "Sinhalese Kings". Yet in a Telugu copper plate of the 5th. C.A.D. the term Sinhaladvipa had been used.
(6) The undeveloped phraseology of the Sinhala language used in the cave inscriptions of the 3rd C.B.C. show the infantile stage of the Sinhala language of the period. This was at a time when the Tamil language was well developed. The Sinhala language should have evolved through the amalgamation of the original pre-Vijayan language of the Island which is believed by some was Elu, with Tamil and the language of a few Klingas - which is once again a Sanskritised Dravidian language - and later with a voluminous vocabulary of Pali - a Sanskritised Prakrit - and Sanskrit words through the influence of Buddhist chronicles and missionaries. Indications of a well developed Sinhala language are found only after the poems of the 4th/6th. C.A.D.
(7) Regarding the term Sihala and its derivatives it will be far more convincing if we consider that the term Sihala was derived from Eelam and not the other way round as some Sinhalese literati would like to have. i.e. Eelam - Sri Eelam - Si Eelam - Sihalam - Sihala and Sinhala Ceylon of the British was derived from Sihala. i.e. Sihala - to Zeilon of the Portuguese to Ceilon/Seilon of the Dutch and to Ceylon of the British. Sri Lanka is derived from Lanka the earliest name for the Island and a pre-Vijayan term.
(8) Unfortunately records of early travellers and traders do not shed much light on the subject. Regarding the antiquity of the Tamils.
(A) Some historians like P. I. Srinivasa Iyangar M. A. of South India says with substantial data in his book " Pre-Aryan Tamil Culture " that the Tamils were in South India by atleast 5000 BC.
(B) Dr. P. E. Peris (later Knigted) in one of his research articles in the Journal of the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, has said that it stands to reason that the boat people of South India, while out boating in the Palk Strait would have sooner or later discovered and populated at least the North Western coasts of the Island. This would have been circa 3000 B.C. when boating is said to have originated in South East Asia as claimed by some researchers. There is evidence of boating by the people of Mohenda Jaro which was about 2500/3000 B.C.
(C) According to the Bible, ships of Solomon and Hiram had during 1000 B.C. traded in sandal wood, gems, pea cocks tortoise shells and apes. As sandal wood was available only in South India, the ships should have come to South India. Further teak wood from the same area was found in Ur of Chaldea.
(D) Tamil words for ivory,apes,pea-cocks, and aghil were almost without any change borrowed by the Hebrew language while Tamil words for rice, ginger and cinamon also without much change have been borrowed by the Greeks.
(E) Recent archaeological excavations have uncovered 9th C.B.C. settlement sites in Anuradhapura with evidence of writing, showing evidence of a civilization congruous with that of South India. This shows that Anuradhapura was inhabited by people with connections with South India before the coming of Vijaya. Further there are a number of pre-Vijayan settlements all over the Island. All excavated such sites show evidence of a pre-Vijayan civilization congruous with that of South India.
(F) Tholkapiam, the oldest extant Tamil work has been dated by Indian researchers at 9th C.B.C.
(G) The Ramayana of the 8th/9th C.B.C. mentions the Pandiyan kingdom as a very rich kingdom.
(H) During the 5th C.B.C. Vijaya married a Pandiyan princess whose retinue consisted of a thousand families of eighteen guilds. This shows that the Pandyans of South India of the 5th C.B.C. was a well developed and established state with division of labour even before the coming of Vijaya.
(I) Mahabharata of the 5th C.B.C. mentions the Cheras and Nagas. According to South Indian Tamil literature and Sri Lankan historical sources a Naga kingdom existed atleast from the 6th C.B.C. to the 3rd C.A.D in the North.
(J) Katyayana the Indian poet and grammarian of the 4th C.B.C. mentions the Cheras, Cholas and Pandyas.
(K) Onesicrates of the 4th C.B.C. mentions Taprobane, a Greek corruption of Tamraparni.
(L) Megasthenes of the 4th.C.B.C. mentions Taprobane and says that it was separated from India by a river.
(M) Asoka’s inscriptions of the 3rd C.B.C. mentions Cheras, Cholas Pandyas and Tambapanni.
(N) Pliny and Periplus of the lst. C.A.D. say that the old name for the Island was Palaya Si Mondu (Old Sri Eela) Mandalam but that the ancients called it Taprobane.
(O) Some of the greatest Tamil works extant today were composed during the period 1st C.B.C to 1st C.A.D.
(P) A calm and unbiased analyses of the Vallipuram Gold Plate of the 2nd. C.A.D. will show that the North had its own king with very little contact with the Sinhalese and with its own independent sect of Buddhism without any attachment to Buddhist sects of Anuradhapura although a sovereign/vasal state arrangement could have existed.
Thus the above will show that:
(I) The Sinhalese race and language could have evolved circa 3rd C.B.C. through the interaction of Tamil Pali and sanskrit a process that is going on even today;
(II) The Tamil race and language with sea going capability, was certainly in existence before atleast l,OOO B.C.
(III) The Tamils would have settled in the Island ages before Vijaya and the Sinhalese appeared in the Island.
(IV) Nothing will be gained by bringing history into politics and politics into history. No useful purpose will be served by arguing whether the chick or the egg came first
(V) It will neither be practical nor advisable to solve our problems on the basis of "who came first" .It will be best if the problems are solved on the basis of natural selection and settlement from a definitely known date and data.
Buddhism and Modern Science: Some Reflections on their Interface
By Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi
Text of a talk given at the Postgraduate Institute of Pali and Buddhist Studies on the occasion of the launching of the book, Beyond the Metaphysics of Common Sense recently.On first consideration it might seem that any attempt to explore the relationship between the revolutionary ideas of contemporary science and the teachings of ancient Buddhism is utterly misguided, like a proposal to draw a comparison between mechanical engineering and Chinese cuisine. The two belong to such different domains that the idea of finding a bridge between them, or of staking out areas of agreement, must look like a hopeless stumbling in the dark. Nevertheless, in their different ways, both science and Buddhism share a common project in their commitment to uncover the truth about the world. Both draw a sharp distinction between the way things appear and the way they really are, and both offer to open our minds to insights into the real nature of things, normally hidden from us by false ideas based on sense perception and "common sense." This concordance of aims at once establishes an affinity between them.
The affinity is further reinforced by the realization that both science and Buddhism arose partly in reaction to other modes of understanding the world which they had to challenge and overturn in order to clear the ground for their own success. These rival modes of understanding were characterized by a common allegiance to weighty traditional authority as the basis for truth. The authority that science had to contest, when it emerged as a self-conscious discipline, was medieval scholasticism, the systematic analysis of natural phenomena based on the works of Aristotle as interpreted by the learned doctors of the medieval Catholic Church. The authority that the Buddha confronted was brahmanism, the doctrines of the brahmin priests and ascetics, which propounded theories about the self and the cosmos that the Buddha considered fruitless myth and speculation.
To challenge their respective opponents both science and Buddhism relied on a common court of appeal, namely, experience. What distinguishes modern science from earlier attempts to comprehend the world is its use of experimentation and observation, and in this respect it shows a striking similarity to Buddhism, which claims to be ehipassiko, "open to investigation." In Buddhism enlightenment or salvation does not come about through pious faith or conformity to rules of conduct, but has to be won by knowledge of "the real nature of phenomena." This knowledge, to be truly effective, must be experiential, a knowing which is also a seeing.
The parallels between Buddhism and contemporary science are even more impressive, but to appreciate these we first have to take a few steps backward in time to the period when modern science first began to reflect on the implications of its own achievements. As it developed, the practitioners of science evolved a set of guidelines which served to steer their explorations of nature along channels that would prove fruitful in expanding our understanding of physical phenomena. Though these guidelines were actually methodological premises, to the scientific community they came to be understood as nothing less than indubitable, objective, universally valid matters of fact. Because they exercised so much pragmatic power, enabling science to add tower upon tower to the expanding edifice of precise knowledge, the theorists of science took these principles to be nothing less than the keys to a complete understanding of reality. Thus in time their methodological presuppositions became subtly transformed from pragmatic guidelines into a metaphysic, a system of first principles which define the nature of the real. Collectively, these metaphysical postulates constitute the world view of modern science, a world view which gained increasing ascendancy in the seventeenth century. Commonly known as the Cartesian- Newtonian conception of nature, after the foremost proponents of the method, this world view still weighs heavily upon us today, even despite the enormous shifts in scientific perspective that have occurred over the past hundred years.
The world view of modern science can be characterized in terms of several assumptions which hang together with a high degree of mutual dependence and internal consistency, Chief among these is the idea that substance is the primary category for understanding the nature of reality. Descartes, the first to cast the premises of modern science in a philosophical mould, defined substance as "that which requires nothing but itself in order to be." Thus the primary notion inherent in the idea of substance is self-sufficiency or independence. Starting from this notion, Descartes went on to divide reality into two types of substances. One is material bodies, whose principal characteristic is extension in space; the other is mind, whose essential characteristic is thought. Being religious men, the founders of science also posited the existence of God, who had created the world from nothing and ordained the laws that govern its operation.
The positing of these two types of substances, each independent of the other, cleared the way for the advance of the scientific investigation of nature by sidelining the unruly realm of the inner life, so difficult to capture in precisely formulated laws, and allowing science to focus its energies on expanding our knowledge of the physical world. The view of the physical world that the Cartesian-Newtonian system advocated is known as mechanism, so called because it regards the universe as a gigantic machine whose operations can be fully defined, at least in theory, by way of the laws of mechanics. This mechanism was closely coupled with the thesis of reductionism, the idea that the higher and more complex levels of reality can be adequately explicated in terms of entities pertaining to the lower and simpler levels.
The combination of mechanism and reductionism went hand in hand with the corpuscular theory of matter, the assumption that at the base of the physical world are an incalculable number of minute particles, the atoms. Subject to the play of mechanical forces in space and time, the atoms, their combinations, and their interactions were held to account for all phenomena at the manifest level. For the theorists of the scientific venture the "primary qualities" of matter, those properties which are real in the truest sense, are the qualities that can be measured: mass, shape, size, and velocity. The other qualities in terms of which we experience the world, but which cannot be quantified, do not really exist but are mere by-products of the impact of material particles on our sense faculties. Thus colours, sounds, odours, tastes, and tactile qualities are purely subjective; they exist, not "out there" in the world, but in our minds, resulting from the ways our senses register the primary qualities.
The first version of the scientific world view was dualistic. It maintained that reality consists of two types of substances: material bodies with simple locations in space and time, subject to the laws of mechanics; and thinking minds, a distinct type of entity not subject to the laws and processes of the physical world. With the passage of time, however, thinkers who reflected deeply on this metaphysical dualism ran smack up against an insuperable problem: How do bodies and minds interact? The interaction of matter and mind is so obvious as to scarcely warrant comment, yet if the two substances are really as distinct as dualism holds, their interaction becomes incomprehensible. The foremost philosophers of the 17th and 18th centuries taxed their minds over this be wildling problem, but though the solutions they came up with were sometimes ingenious, none was cogent enough to command widespread assent. Thus a later generation of thinkers, giving physical science the benefit of the doubt, adopted an alternative route. This is the philosophy of materialism, which tries to solve the riddle by casting out the more ethereal type of substance, mind, and granting full reality exclusively to matter.
Even down to the present day most philosophers influenced by the scientific world view subscribe to one of these two theories: either dualism, with its insoluble mystery of an interaction between two entities so different as-mind and matter; or materialism, which solves the problem by eliminating one of its terms, ironically the very term that is trying to solve the problem! Despite their differences, however, both camps agree that the proper domain of scientific investigation is matter and its modifications, while mind, if it is granted any reality at all, is assigned to its own sphere, a strange and baffling sphere where techniques of quantification are helpless. Even the social sciences—such as Psychology, sociology, and economics, which do take account of the mind- construct their models of mentality on the analogy of the physical sciences, seeking to depict the mind (or society or the economy) as a closed mechanical system subject to fixed laws of determination ultimately resting on a material foundation.
These two pictures of reality, dualism and materialism, have had an impact on human civilization that has been particularly baneful, especially in the West, where their influence has been the weightiest. In their different ways the two have been responsible for the sharp scission which has taken place in Western culture between science and religion, where science is taken to be the human enterprise that provides us with genuine knowledge of the world, while religion is relegated to a subordinate role, its task being to enjoin us to place faith in theological creeds and ethical codes of conduct, and to console us in times of tribulation with hopes of an afterlife where all injustices will be set right.
Since the gap between scientific knowledge and religious faith is a wide one, calling for a bold leap, and since too often this leap has to be made by denying the hard evidence of science, many people influenced by the scientific climate of thought have fallen into an attitude that might be called practical atheism. This atheism, unlike that of the early rationalists, is not so much a denial of God and the supramundane as it is a simple indifference to all higher values and the inner prompting of the spirit. The reign of indifference to spiritual ideals is further exacerbated by the enormous success science has enjoyed in spawning a profusion of technologies that have helped to eliminate so many of our physical and social ills and to make life so much more comfortable and secure for all of us. Whereas the rebellious atheist of the 19th century could cry out in despair, "If God is dead then everything becomes permissible," today’s "practical atheist" says, "So God is dead. Let’s go to the shopping mall."
It is hardly an exaggeration to say that many of the egregious social and cultural problems we face today are rooted in the sharp schism between science and religion, where science claims invincible knowledge based on the empirical investigation of the natural world, while religion calls out for faith in incredible creeds and obedience to demanding codes of ethics. Since religion, as traditionally understood, has come to rest on little more than blithe promises and pompous threats, its claims to our allegiance seldom win assent. As a result, a vast portion of humankind today has become alienated from religion as a meaningful guide to life, left with no alternative but to plunge headlong into the secular religion of consumerism and hedonism. Too often those in the religious camp, sensing the threat posed by secularism to their own security, feel driven towards an aggressive fundamentalism in a desperate bid to salvage traditional loyalties.
The quest to establish a sound basis for conduct in today’s world has been made particularly tough because one consequence of the dominance of the scientific world view has been the banishment of values from the domain of the real. This is not to say that natural scientists disregard human values; many in fact have been staunch advocates of such ideals as world peace, political justice, and greater economic equality. But the world view promulgated by modern science grants to values no objective grounding in the grand scheme of things. From this perspective their root and basis is purely subjective, and thus they bring along all the qualities that the notion of subjectivity suggests: they are personal, private, relative, even arbitrary.
Just as minds belong to a compartment quite distinct from the physical world and have at best a nebulous kind of being, so values, which are anchored in the mind, share this nebulous status. The overall effect of this scission, despite the best intentions of many responsible proponents of the scientific method, has been to give a green light to life-styles founded on the quest for personal gratification and a power drive aimed at the exploitation of others.
While the climate of thought ushered in by modern science holds sway over most thinking people today, since the early 20th century leading scientific thinkers have been drawn, almost by accident, towards insights into the natural world that correspond very closely with the doctrines taught by Buddhist sages centuries ago. Interestingly, these insights have emerged most dramatically in the chief discipline of "hard science," namely physics. They include the theory of relativity, with its thesis that space and time have no absolute being separate from the observer’s frame of reference; the quantum theory, which holds the energy is discharged in discrete packets rather than as a continuum; the discover of the convertibility of matter and energy; the principle of indeterminacy which (on one interpretation at least) implies that deterministic causation is no absolute; and more. Perhaps most significant is the shift in world views from conception of substance as the primary category for understanding the real to one which stresses the primacy of process. Developments in subatomic physics make it increasingly clear that the physical world is constituted, not by self-subsistent substantial particles, passive and inert, but by dynamic processes bound up in a vast web of conditional relations. From the standpoint of contemporary physics, the universe is best understood as an inconceivably complex network of events, each arising and perishing in momentary succession, exercising a conditioning function in relation to virtually every other event in the universe.
Although Buddhists have sometimes hailed these advances in contemporary science as a vindication of the eternal truths taught by the Buddha, we have to be cautious how we interpret them. It is too easy to try to hitch the Buddha’s Dhamma to the horse team of science in the hope of winning the race of religious competition. This approach, however, entails several real risks. Most prominently, it implies that we seek confirmation of the Buddha’s wisdom from those who do not make any claim to enlightenment. If we make our faith contingent on the correspondence between Buddhism and science, and if the theories of science should later change, we then find ourselves in the embarrassing position of having hitched our wagon to the wrong horses.
It is thus necessary to recognize the great differences in aim and orientation between Buddhism and science. While both may share certain conceptions about the nature of reality, science is essentially a project designed to provide us with objective, factual knowledge, with information pertaining to the public domain. Buddhism is a religion intended to promote inner transformation and the realization of the highest spiritual good, called enlightenment, or liberation, or Nibbana. In Buddhism, the quest for knowledge is important not as an end in itself, but because the main cause of our bondage and suffering is ignorance, not understanding things as they really are, and thus the antidote needed to heal this disease of ignorance is knowledge or insight.
This concern with knowledge allies Buddhism with science, but the knowledge to be acquired by the practice of the Dhamma differs significantly from that sought by science in several major respects. Most importantly, the knowledge sought is not simply the acquisition of objective information about the constitution and operations of the physical world, but a deep personal insight into the real nature of one’s own personal existence. In scientific inquiry the observer is bracketed, presupposed but placed in the background as far out of the picture as possible. The ideal, so to speak, is to obtain "the view from nowhere," a stance of perfect objectivity. One seeks a mode of understanding that would be valid for anyone, even if there were no subjects at all in the universe.
In contrast, in Buddhism this objective quest for knowledge is turned on its head. The aim is not to understand reality from the outside but from the inside, from the perspective of one’s own living experience. One seeks not factual knowledge but insight or wisdom, a personal knowledge, inescapably subjective, whose whole value lies in its transformative impact on one’s life. Concern with the outer world, as an object of knowledge, arises only in so far as the outer world is inextricably implicated in experience. As the Buddha says: "It is in this body with its perception and thought that I declare is the world, the origin of the world, the cessation of the world, and the way to the cessation of the world" (Rohitassa Sutta).
Because Buddhism takes personal experience as its starting point, without aiming to use experience as a springboard to an impersonal, objective type of knowledge, it includes within its sphere of concern the entire spectrum of qualities disclosed by personal experience. This means that Buddhism gives prime consideration to values. But even more, values for Buddhism are not merely projections of subjective judgements which we fashion according to our personal whims, social needs, or cultural conditioning; to the contrary, they are written into the texture of reality just as firmly as the laws of motion and thermodynamics. Hence values can be evaluated: rated in terms of truth and falsity, ranked as valid or invalid, and part of our task in giving meaning to our life is to unearth the true scheme of values. To determine the true gradation of values we must turn our attention inwards and use subjective criteria of investigation, but what we find, far from being private or arbitrary, is an integral part of the objective order, permeated by the same lawfulness as that which governs the movements of the planets and the stars.
Confirmation of the objective reality of value implies another major distinction between Buddhism and natural science. In order for the liberating knowledge of enlightenment to arise, the investigator must undergo a profound personal transformation guided by inner perception of the genuine values.
While natural science can be undertaken as a purely intellectual discipline, the Buddhist quest in its entirety is an existential discipline which can only be implemented by regulating one’s conduct, purifying one’s mind, and refining one’s capacity for attention to one’s own bodily and mental processes. This training requires compliance with ethics all the way through, and thus ethical guidelines support and pervade the entire training from its starting point in right action to its culmination in the highest liberation of the mind.
What is especially noteworthy is that the ethical thrust of the Buddhist training and its cognitive thrust converge on the same point, the realization of the truth of selflessness (anatta). It is just here that contemporary science approaches Buddhism in its discovery of the process nature of actuality, implying the lack of an ultimate substance concealed behind the sequence of events. But this correspondence again points to a fundamental difference. In Buddhism the impermanent and substanceless nature of reality is not simply a factual truth apprehended by objective knowledge. It is above all an existential truth, a transformative principle offering the key to right understanding and right liberation. To use this key to open the door to spiritual freedom, its sole purpose, we must govern our conduct on the premise that the idea of a substantial self is a delusion. It is insufficient merely to give intellectual assent to the idea of selflessness and turn it into a plaything of thought. The principle must be penetrated by training ourselves to discover the absence of self hood in its subtlest hiding place, the deep recesses of our own minds.
I mentioned above the split precipitated by science between knowledge and ethics, with knowledge relating to matters of objective fact and ethics being assigned to a domain of internal, purely subjective norms and values. By focusing on the causes of happiness and suffering, Buddhism helps to heal this division by showing that the sustaining causes of ignorance and suffering are unwholesome conduct and defiled states of mind, while the supporting causes of happiness and wisdom are virtuous conduct and wholesome states of mind. Thus ethics, in its broadest sense, becomes an integral part of the discipline aimed at knowledge, and ethics and knowledge in combination become the tools for achieving the highest good, enlightenment and spiritual freedom.
The Enlightened One is not only, like the scientist, a lokavidu, "a knower of the world" but also; above all, a Vijiacaranasan Sananno, "one complete in both knowledge and conduct." It is to be hoped that Buddhist thinkers and open-minded scientists, by sharing their insights and reflections, can show us a meaningful way to heal the rift between knowledge and conduct so rampant in human life today.
US dialogue with India, Pakistan
Relations with US to be ‘strongly influenced’ by non-proliferation
By Rick Marshall
USIA Staff WriterWashington — Matt Daley, a senior State Department advisor on India and Pakistan, addressed a gathering of South Asian media and security specialists at the Henry L. Stimson Center January 13 in advance of Deputy Secretary Strobe Talbott’s trip to India and Pakistan later this month.
"We are not going to ask either country to take measures that we think harm their interests," Daley, a former deputy chief of mission at the U.S. embassy in New Delhi, said.
"The U.S. accepts the reality that India and Pakistan have tested." That does not mean, however, that Washington is prepared to accept either as nuclear states under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). This is not just an American concern, he said, adding that the extent to which other nations share U.S. views on the matter appears to be rather "underappreciated" in South Asia.
In December, following Talbott’s discussions with his Indian counterparts, Indian Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee "reaffirmed that India is committed to converting its voluntary moratorium (on nuclear testing) to a de jure obligation; that India is engaged in discussions with the United States and other countries which it is prepared to conclude successfully, for the purpose of ensuring that the entry into force of CTBT (the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty) is not delayed beyond September of this year," Daley said.
On the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty, he continued, "India is participating constructively in the negotiations in Geneva and indeed, like Pakistan, has facilitated the opening of those negotiations. India has turned aside suggestions that it will now look favorably upon a moratorium on fissile material production, but it’s indicated a willingness to consider what might emerge from negotiated multilateral initiatives in the course of the FMCT talks. This remains a subject of active discussions between Washington and New Delhi and between Washington and Islamabad."
"India has announced what we would say are welcome policies on the subject of export controls," Daley stated. "We’ve had one round of experts’ talks on those topics. That was in November and another round will follow in the not-too-distant future. We’re at the stage now of exchanging papers. India has announced its intention to strengthen its system of export controls, and I think it’s fair to say it hopes to see better access to dual use and the high technologies."
"Our discussions on issues that could be grouped under the rubric of defense posture have been filled on a broad, almost philosophical plane. The Prime Minister has announced that India will have a credible minimum deterrent, one that is survivable and provides an adequate response to an attack. We will look forward to discussing what that means in concrete terms. I think that discussion will be a richer one as India completes its strategic defense review."
"Finally, we are talking about what kind of relationship the United States and India would hope to have in the future, and obviously the shape of that relationship is going to be strongly influenced by what kind of common ground we can reach on the non-proliferation agenda."
Turning to Kashmir, Daley said it is an issue that "the two countries are going to have to resolve essentially bilaterally."
"India has been adamant in rejecting" various international efforts to help resolve this dispute, Daley commented. "While we understand the Indian position, that will not stay us from articulating our ideas" on how the two might address it.
"Pakistan has often explicitly conditioned various steps on actions taken by its larger neighbor. We hope that in the process of moving toward the international mainstream on the range of non-proliferation issues, Islamabad will, on occasion, judge that its interests are better served by moving first. This is the case with CTBT. We think that Pakistan has an opportunity to regain some of the moral high ground that it lost when it followed the unfortunate Indian example of May 11 and 13.
Similarly, we think that when Pakistan considers carefully the action-reaction cycle that accompanies many developments in the strategic area, it will arrive at a more profound understanding of how a moratorium on fissile material production can serve its interests. Pakistan makes the point, and it’s not without validity, that its strategy must take into account the larger Indian conventional forces — some might well add, just as India must take account of more than Pakistan’s capabilities and intentions when it determines its security requirements."
The United States hopes, Daley added, that "Pakistan will take heart from the sanctions relief that followed in the wake of the Prime Minister’s (Nawaz Sharif) announcements to the UNGA (United Nations General Assembly) and take further steps that the Congress and the Administration would hope to see in the near future."
"On export controls, like India, Pakistan has announced the right policies," he added. "We’re in the midst of ongoing exchanges between experts on this very topic."
In conclusion, Daley said that while he could not exclude the possibility that Talbott might hit a brick wall when he visits South Asia at the end of the month, "there is ample room for further discussion, for further understanding and refinement of respective positions."
"I just don’t see, in this narrow discussion, this narrow rubric right now, the makings of a deadlock," he said.
