Mahavamsa Buddhism Of Wigneswaran And Sharmini
By C. Wijeyawickrema --January 14, 2014
Lankaweb readers need to surf Colombo Telegraph (CT) website to get an idea of the crazy things taking place on the other side of their world. It is full of examples reminding us the Sixteen Dreams of the King Kosol. Recently, I saw two news items on CT. First was by one Sharmini Serasinghe, who on her own words “was Director Communications of the former Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process (SCOPP) under Secretary Generals Jayantha Dhanapala and Dr. John Gooneratne, with over thirty years in journalism in both the print and electronic media” says the late Ven. Piyadassi of the Vajirarama taught her so many things as a child including the habit to sit at the table with him. The second CT story (Jan 8, 2014) reports, “against this background, Wigneswaran referred to an article published in the Colombo Telegraph, titled ‘Mahawamsa- An insult to the Buddha’ by the Sinhalese journalist Sharmini Serasinghe, saying it was an exceptional article that portrays the truth.
CT goes on, reporting “…Speaking at the inauguration, of the SOS Children’s Village in Jaffna last Sunday 5th January,Wigneswaran said that Sinhalese Buddhist propagandists, were claiming that Sri Lanka was a Sinhalese Buddhist country, and therefore other communities must live according to how the majority community wished……He further pointed out, that these propagandists needed to be reminded, that the Tamils were always here, as the majority of the North and East of the country. He said that this was acknowledged in a letter to Sir Ponnambalam Arunachalam, by illustrious personalities such as E A Samarawickrama, and Sir James Peiris, way back in 1919……He added that, these Sinhalese Buddhist propagandists were using, the 6th Century AD Pali Chronicle- the Mahawamsa, to create ill feeling against Tamils, by portraying them as aliens……Wigneswaran warned that, if the country’s distorted history is continued to be taught in schools, trouble will inevitably ensue. Therefore he suggests, for a panel of Sri Lankan and foreign experts, to be entrusted with the task of re-writing Sri Lankan history impartially, from the earliest times, to that of independence from British rule, in 1948. (The story above is based on the report filed by PK Balachandran‘s to Indian Express).
It was after the second story by Wigneswaran that I decided to read the first story by Sharmini S. I record here what I thought about these two crazy stories. Read More
Lankaweb readers need to surf Colombo Telegraph (CT) website to get an idea of the crazy things taking place on the other side of their world. It is full of examples reminding us the Sixteen Dreams of the King Kosol. Recently, I saw two news items on CT. First was by one Sharmini Serasinghe, who on her own words “was Director Communications of the former Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process (SCOPP) under Secretary Generals Jayantha Dhanapala and Dr. John Gooneratne, with over thirty years in journalism in both the print and electronic media” says the late Ven. Piyadassi of the Vajirarama taught her so many things as a child including the habit to sit at the table with him. The second CT story (Jan 8, 2014) reports, “against this background, Wigneswaran referred to an article published in the Colombo Telegraph, titled ‘Mahawamsa- An insult to the Buddha’ by the Sinhalese journalist Sharmini Serasinghe, saying it was an exceptional article that portrays the truth.Sharmini On Buddhism And Ritual
H.L. Seneviratne
I started this as a comment on Sharmini Serasinghe’s “Open Letter”, but it turned it to be too long for a comment. So I am asking CT to publish this as a separate piece.
My view of Buddhism is broadly similar to that of Sharmini, and there obviously are many other non-ritualist Buddhists like Sharmini and me. But there is another side. While the monks can fairly be accused of making a ritualism of Buddhism, it is ritualism, and not the “philosophy” of the Buddha, that has enabled it to gain popularity and become a world religion. Even in the modern west, Buddhism is often culticized by individuals and groups, though free of the gross ritualism of the traditionally Buddhist societies.
Thus, though a necessary condition for the popularity of Buddhism, ritualism came at a price, that of tarnishing Buddhism by an excess of it. The invention of ritual was a large-scale project that spread over the centuries, and its nature varied from locality and time, with the effect that in some places and at certain times, it was disciplined and remained more or less compatible with the spirit of Buddhism, and in others, took bizarre forms.
Had it not been for the ritualism that catered to the emotional needs of the many, Buddhism may have remained a “philosophy”, as many intellectual Buddhists claim it is. And the Buddha may have been not the great teacher of world stature that he is, and has been for centuries, but a philosopher like Socrates, unknown except to philosophy students. Read More
