Triangular battle in presidential election

 

Sunday, 13 July 2014 

There are signs of the presidential election turning into a triangular battle as all three leaders from the main three parties in South are to stand in for the presidential election.

According to 'Irida Divaina' newspaper, the current President Mahinda Rajapaksa, Ranil Wickremesinghe from United National Party, Anura Kumara Dissanayake from Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna are to stand in for the presidential election.

The political sources report that since two leaders from opposition are standing in for the election there would be no common candidate and the Ven. Maduluwawe Sobitha Thero who expected to contest as the common candidate is to support the candidate who is ready to implement his suggestions.

Expressing his views with regard to the election the JVP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake has told 'Divaina Irida Sangrahaya' that he is to stand in for the presidential election as a true alternative for the two camps of President Mahinda Rajapaksa and Ranil Wickremesinghe.

Sailing South And Meeting The North

By Darshanie Ratnawalli -July 13, 2014

Darshanie Ratnawalli

Gautama Buddha, the pride of the Sakyas, c. 460-380 BC according to the latest consensus[i], was no empiricist. He lived in a wondrous world populated by myriad fantastic beings of the Indo-Aryan myth pool. A passage in the Chullavagga, an early text in the Pali Cannon gives us the Buddha’s eye view of the deep sea. According to Him, the great ocean, awe inspiring, astonishing and curious is “the dwelling place of mighty beings, among which are the Timi, the Timingala, the Timitimingala, the Asuras, the Nagas and the Ghandharvas” with the whole lot so constituted as to “stretch from one to five hundred leagues”.-(p32, Jean Philippe Vogel:1926^[ii] -full text) 

Going to the beach would have been such an adventure in the Buddha’s time.  How exciting then to have been a long distance trader from the north of India sailing to new, distant lands in the south. What marvelous travelers’ tales would have been brought back about what new creatures! Er… no. No new creatures. A northern trader sailing south would encounter the same old familiar creatures of the Indo Aryan myth-pool; the Yakshas, Nagas, Suparnas, etc. It’s very like that old science fiction plot device; when you are escaping the Earth, you are really flying back to it.

To come back to Earth Watson, don’t you see what happens? Northern traders sailing south are agents widening the geographical horizons of their known universe. After they have discovered the south, so to speak, the northern storytellers step in and start locating stories in the new southern settings, which they populate with creatures they have grown up with; Yakshas, Yakshanis, Nagas, Suparnas. Thus, they annex the south, make it part of their cultural universe where familiar creatures of their own myth-pool walk.                    Read More