Diagnostic And Statistical Manual Of Mental Disorders And The Buddhist Jathaka Stories
Psychiatric Disorder: An Analysis Of Gotabaya Rajapaksa
By Brian
Senewiratne -September 5,
2012
A Possible
Psychiatric Disorder At The Top Of The Government, An Analysis Of Gotabaya
Rajapaksa
Dr. Brian Senewiratne
This is a serious analysis of Gotabaya
Rajapaksa, Defence Secretary, effectively the de
facto President of Sri Lanka, brother of the elected President Mahinda
Rajapaksa who is only the de jure President.
A
country with two Presidents
It
is erroneously claimed that Mahinda
Rajapaksa is the most powerful person in Sri Lanka. There is evidence
that Gotabaya Rajapaksa is the most
powerful (and certainly the most feared and ruthless) person in Sri Lanka.
A
single (but crucial) example will suffice. With mounting international pressure
to devolve some power to the Tamil areas (North and East), President Mahinda
Rajapaksa initiated the All Party Representative Council (APRC) to look into a
constitutional political settlement. The APRC limbered on from 2006-2009 and
submitted a Report. This was never published. It was buried, as have so many
Reports of Commissions of Inquiry and the like, in Sri Lanka.
With
increasing pressure, particularly from India, the President initiated (yet
another) ‘Committee’ – the Parliamentary Select Committee – to look into a
constitutional settlement (that had just been done by the APRC).
In
stepped de facto ‘President’ Gotabaya Rajapaksa. On 16 August 2012, in
an interview to India’s Headlines Today television, he said that Sri
Lanka would not devolve any more powers to the minorities in spite of the
promises it made in the past. He said:
“The
existing constitution is more than enough…..Devolution-wise I think we have done
enough. I don’t think there is a necessity to go beyond that”.
And
it has not gone “beyond that.” Q.E.D (quod erat
demonstrandum – a Latin phrase which
translates as “which was to be demonstrated”. The
phrase is placed in its abbreviated form at the end of a mathematical
proof or philosophical argument when what was
specified in the enunciation has been proved.
There
are numerous other examples of Gotabaya Rajapaksa, a mere Public Servant,
telling the President and the Government to go to hell. What will be done is
what he wants done. If that is not a de facto President, I do not know
what he is.
Several
people/groups, in and outside Sri Lanka, have expressed concern. Col R
Hariharan, an Indian specialist on South Asian military Intelligence,
in his “Sri Lanka: Gotabaya larger than life” (9 July 2012) said,
“President Rajapaksa would be well advised to distance himself swiftly from
his brother…. on sensitive issues that are not his business”. Yes, indeed,
it is not his business.
The
Head of the Centre
for Policy Alternatives – a human rights group in Colombo– in an
article, “Gotabaya Rajapaksa. Too full of power to exercise it”, has
called for his resignation or dismissal, not once but three times.
Friday
Forum, a group of much respected members of civil society in Colombo, which
includes Jayantha Dhanapala, an internationally respected diplomat, in a damning
indictment, “Arrogance of Power”, asked, “Is it acceptable for His
Excellency the President to keep in high office a person who demonstrates an
incapability to control his temper?”
Diagnostic And Statistical Manual Of Mental Disorders And The Buddhist Jathaka Stories
Dr. Ruwan M Jayatunge MD
Several years ago, I
exchanged views on DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)
and the Buddhist Jathaka stories with some Psychologists / Psychiatrists of the
USA, UK, Australia and Canada. Only a very few knew the existence of the
Buddhist Jathaka stories and how deeply it touches the DSM based mental
illnesses.
What
are Jathaka Stories ?
The
Jathaka stories or Jathaka tales are a voluminous body of folklore concerned
with previous births of the Buddha which is based as a collection of five
hundred and fifty stories. Originally it comprise of 547 poems, arranged roughly
by increasing number of verses. According to archaeological and literary
evidence, the Jathaka stories were compiled in the period, the 3rd Century B.C.
to the 5th Century A.D. The Khuddaka Nikāya contains 550 stories the Buddha told
of his previous lifetimes as an aspiring Bodhisatta.
According
to Professor Rhys DavidsJātaka stories are one of the oldest fables. Rev
Buddhaghosa, translated most of the Jathaka stories into Pāli about 430 A.D.
Jathaka stories can be considered as cases studies of the Buddhist philosophy.
Most of the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders ) based
mental ailments could be seen in the Jathaka stories. It discusses profound
psychological themes and analyses the human mind. The Consultant Psychiatrist Dr
D.V.J Harischandra in his famous book Psychiatric aspects of Jathaka stories
points out that the Western Psychologists should study the essences of mind
analysis in Jathaka stories.
Jathaka
Stories and the Western World
Among
the Westerners Professor Rhys Davids Ph.D., LL. D., of London, Secretary of the
Asiatic Society studied the historical and cultural context of the Jathaka
stories and he translated a large number of stories in 1880. Professor E. B.
Cowell, professor of Sanskrit in the University of Cambridge, brought out the
complete edition of the Jataka stories between 1895 and 1907.
