BUDDHIST NATIONALISM AND RELIGIOUS VIOLENCE
IN ŚRI LANKĀ

 

 

While this Sangha.
. . has democracy, it has neither [a] special country nor nation nor caste.  To
such a society which has no country, nation, or caste, every human being is the
same. . . . Those who fight against the Tamils are not Buddhists.

 

�Naravila
Dhammaratana[1]

 

 

Introduction

 

           
Recently the Śri Lankān people have witnessed more religious violence
than ever before.  It has spread from the conflict with the Tamil Tigers to
Buddhist attacks on Muslims and Christians, and now counter attacks by aggrieved
Muslims.  During the 1990s the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
(LTTE) forced thousands of Muslims out of their
northern �homeland,� but at an April, 2002 press conference they announced that
they were reconsidering this rash and destructive
decision as well as committing themselves to a Norwegian
brokered cease fire.^[2]
There were also been positive signs from the Buddhist
leadership, who successfully opposed three previous attempts at settlement. 
Starting in April, 2005, however, political murders,
committed mostly by the LTTE, increased to one per day, and one year later full
scale war has resumed between the LTTE and the Colombo government.

While the world community has rightly
condemned the LTTE and its brutal acts, but fewer people are cognizant of the
role that militant Buddhists have played in this conflict.  Here, for
example, are excerpts of songs, published by the government, of the Buddhist
monk Elle Gunavamsa:

The sword is pulled from the [scabbard], it is

Not put back unless smeared with blood.

I turned by blood to milk to make you grow

Not for myself but for the country

My brave, brilliant soldier son

Leaving [home] to defend the motherland

That act of merit is enough

To reach Nirvāna in a future birth.[3]

Many in the world community would be shocked to learn that
these lines were composed by a Buddhist monk.

           
During 2003-04, 165 Śri Lankān Christian churches were attacked
by Buddhist mobs, resulting in the complete destruction of some, the
stoning of parsonages, the smashing of statues, and the burning the Bibles and
hymnals. Śri Lankā has the largest percentage of Christians in South Asia, and
25 percent of those are Tamils. (The father of Tamil nationalism was a Malaysian
Christian by the name of J. V. Chelvanayakam.) Christians say that one reason
they are being targeted is that they are accused of being Tamil sympathizers. 
The other reason is that Protestant Christian missionaries have had considerable
success in recent years, which has led to Buddhist charges of unethical
conversions.  One website claims that Evangelicals and Pentecostals have
increased from 50,000 to 240,000 since 1980.  The missionaries can also
claim that they are simply making up for lost ground because before the rise of
neo-Buddhism in the late 19^th Century there were many more Christians
on the island.

            Taking
a page out of the book of Hindu fundamentalists, who have passed anti-conversion
law in six Indian states, monastic legislators
from the Jathika Hela Urumaya drafted a similar bill that
would outlaw the conversion, �by the use of force or by allurement or by any
fraudulent means,� of a person from one religion to another.  Some Buddhist
extremists have spread rumors that Christians had assassinated the Buddhist monk
who initiated the bill, even though an autopsy showed that he had died of a
heart attack.  Śri Lankān police have been criticized for being slow in making
arrests and for dismissing the attackers as mere drunks, but some observers
suspect that they are encouraged by radical elements of the Janatha Vimukthi
Peramuna (JVP), a socialist party that has supported a strong nationalist
platform for decades. The monks in the JVP are disciples of Anagarika Dharmapala, the father of Buddhist nationalism
and whose second generation monks, as H. L. Seneviratne contends, upset the
�delicate balance� established by first generation Dharmapalite monks with
�violence, breaking it up into pieces, never to be put back together again.�[4] 

           
Buddhist nationalism has its roots in the Dīpavamsa, Mahāvamsa,
and Culavamsa, texts unique to Sinhalese Buddhism. Over the centuries
effective rituals, described in the third section below, were developed to
reconcile the presence of non-Buddhists in what some Buddhists perceive to be
the cosmic center of the Dharma.  These premodern systems of integrating the
�other� have now been supplanted by a modernist concept of a Buddhist nation
state that is exclusionary rather than inclusionary.  Peter Schalk proposes that
there is now a Sinhalatva (Sinhaleseness) that is just as rigid and
uncompromising as Hindutva (Hinduness) in neighboring India.^[5] 

We will explore the view that this Sinhalatva is based on a
reverse Orientalism that essentializes ethnic identities and leverages the
supposed superiority of Aryan Buddhists to attack Dravidian Tamils and other
�aliens� in Śri Lankā.  The fact that even a moderate such as monk Bhikkhu
Dhammavihari labels the Tamils �non-Śri Lankān� is particularly unfortunate.  It
does not help Dhammavihari�s anti-Tamil brief to claim historical authority for
the Mahāvamsa and then state, quite incongruously, that the chroniclers
�bungle� when their accounts are embarrassing or do not fit his thesis.[6]

            For
the purposes of this paper a premodern worldview is one in which totality,
unity, and purpose are paramount.  These values were celebrated in ritual and
myth, the effect of which was to sacralize the cycles of seasons, the
generations of animal and human procreation, and to integrate the presence of
aliens. The human self, then, is an integral part of the sacred whole, which is
greater than and more valuable than its parts. Generally speaking, the premodern
mind resolves conflict dialectically, the polarities of yin and yang
being the best examples. (The exception to this rule is radical dualism of
Manicheanism and Gnosticism.) Robert Bellah has observed that modern religion
rejects the premodern mediation of ritual and myth in favor of an unmediated
personal salvation.[7]  Interestingly
enough, there are anticipations of this religious individualism in the world�s
ascetic traditions, but it did not come to full fruition until the Protestant
Reformation.  Elsewhere I have argued that premodernism, modernism,
and postmodernism is best understood conceptually rather than in strict
chronological terms.[8]

            In
contrast to premodern polarity, the modern mind loves to dichotomize: it
separates the mind from the heart, fact and value, science and faith, the public
from the private, and theory from practice.  As opposed to the premodern
relational self, the modern self is seen as self-contained and
self-legislating–a social atom as it were.  The modern nation state is this
autonomous self expressed as the will of a people defined by language, culture,
religion, and race.  Just as selves as social atoms become dysfunctional, the
nation states tend to behave in similar ways. Furthermore, there is a move from
a premodern orality to modernist textuality, where the priest/pastor/monk now
exhorts his congregation to act on the meaning, sometimes quite untraditional,
of selected texts of vernacular scripture available to a literate population. 
There is a significant difference between finding noncognitive meaning in a
ritual performed in sacred language that the believer does not know, and a much
more cognitive gnōsis by which modern believers shape their religious
worldviews and sometimes acting on them in a political way.  Here we find a
movement from premodern sacred �sound as the message� to a modern vernacular
text with an intellectual meaning. In this paper I will critique Śri Lankān
Buddhist nationalism using this premodern/modern heuristic, and then, in the
concluding section, offer a constructive postmodern solution.

           
Nationalist claims to ethnic and religious purity have never been borne out by
the facts.   Śri Lankā�s founding myth involves the intermingling of native
peoples with Hindu immigrants from North and South India.  Historically,
Buddhism did not arrive in Śri Lankā until the 3^rd Century BCE. It is
a fact that Buddhist frequently kings fended off military invasions from South
India, but just as often they formed alliances with Hindu rulers and traders
from Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Parakrama Bahu I (1153-86) welcomed South Indian Śaivites with
open arms, giving them lands and titles, just as South Indians welcomed Jews and
Christians to their Malabar coast.

The supreme irony is that the Tamil kings of the Nayakkar line
(1739-1815) did the most to restore the Sinhalese Buddhist priesthood and
promote Buddhist art and architecture.  The other significant fact is that at
this time Tamils and Sinhalese were usually not divided by race as they have
been since the late 19^th Century.[9]  The
main factor here was the introduction of the European discovery that that
Sinhala was an Indo-European (=Aryan) language whereas Tamil was a Dravidian
language.  The caustic mix of race, language, and Buddhist nationhood had
its origins here.

            The
flag of Śri Lankān contains two stripes, green embracing the Muslims and orange
integrating the Hindus, thus validating their Sinhalese identity in the Country
of the Lion (=Sinhala).  Buddhist nationalists have removed these colored strips
from their flag, so the sword in the lion�s hand must now appear much more
menacing to Hindus, Muslims, and Christians, the Hindus comprising 12 percent of
the population with Muslims and Christians claiming 8 percent each. 

The Tamil Tigers are just as much to blame for their many
atrocities�they have done more suicide bombings than all other terrorist groups
combined–but terrorists, whatever their nationality or religion, are made not
born.  Some argue that Tamil claims to an ancient homeland and distinct ethnic
identity are groundless,[10]
but comparable Buddhist claims Aryan racial purity are similarly without merit. 
There are some instructive similarities to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  An
aggrieved minority has been radicalized by a perception that Israel and its
American ally do not care about them, and Israeli military superiority has
forced the some Palestinians to use terrorist tactics to fight back. Both sides
in both conflicts have legitimate claim to living on the land that is in
dispute. A long, bitter, polarizing struggle with no easy solution has been the
result in both countries.

            For
decades Tamil moderates proposed a reasonable federal solution as they pleaded
for social, economic, and linguistic inclusion with some autonomy. (Ironically,
medieval Sinhalese polity was a loose federation rather than the homogenous
state imputed to it by contemporary Buddhist nationalists.) Until the 1970s a
great majority of Tamils would not have supported a separate Tamil state, just
as most Indian Muslims did not support Partition.  As D. Amarasiri Weeratane
states: �When all attempts to settle the problem by democratic methods failed,
the Tamils were driven into the arms of the terrorists who posed as the saviours
of the Tamil people.�[11]
Tragically, Muslim and Hindu extremists won out in 1948, but let us hope that
the Śri Lankāns can avoid the catastrophic dislocation that ravaged India. 
Fortunately, the Tamil Tigers do not embrace the ideology of Hindu essentialism
because their grievances are primarily economic and linguistic, not religious.
The first step to peace for Śri Lankāns is the acknowledge the fact that for
over 2,200 years their beautiful island has been, is now, and must always be a
multi-ethnic and multi-religious society.

 

The Mythical Origins of the
Sinhalese Nation

            The
Mahāvamsa (written in the 6^th Century CE) tells the story of
Sinhabahu, a North India who, along with a twin sister Sinhasivali, was born of
the union between a lion and a maiden.  He was not a Buddhist but a Vaisnava,
and he founded a city called Sinhapura in the lion�s territory, and together
with his sister as queen, fathered 32 sons, the eldest of whom was Vijaya.  The
Mahāvamsa explains that �Vijaya was of evil conduct and his followers
were even (like himself), and many intolerable deeds of violence were done by
them.�[12]  Vijaya and 700 of his men were banished and sent away to sea, landing in Śri
Lankā at the time, the chronicle claims, of the Buddha�s death.  This is the
mythological source of the Sinhalese people, those who came from a lion (sinha)
and who established Sinhala �the country of the lion.�

Vijaya�s first task was to rid the island of its indigenous
population, known in Hindu epics as a country of yaksas and raksasas,
the most famous being Ravāna of the Ramāyana.   The first chapter of the
Mahāvamsa relates that the Buddha himself did preparatory work during
three trips to the island, converting �many koti of living beings� to
Buddhism, founding stupas, and otherwise preparing the way for the Dharma, which
historically did not come for another 300 years.  While it is clear that the
resident nagas were converted, the Mahāvamsa (chapter 1) relates
that Buddha relieved the yaksas of their fears in return for the
possession of their island.  The Buddha did no violence to them and exiled them
to a �rocky island,� but they were back on the main island when Vijaya arrived. 
Furthermore, the Mahāvamsa does not record any encounter with Buddhists
or discovery of stupas.

           
According to the chapter 7 of Mahāvamsa Vijaya did have two children by
the yaksi Kuvani. Following the ancient theme of maiden betraying her
people to the foreigner, Vijaya, with Kuvani�s help, slaughters her fellow
yaksas, but in the end Kuvani is banished along with her children. This
mytheme allows us to assume that there was intermarriage with native people, the
Vaddas, who, in ancient times, were hunter gatherers spread throughout the
island.  Most of them were converted to Buddhism after the 15th Century and
became rice farmers in the western regions of the country.  Only several
thousand preserve their original identity today and some claim Vijaya as their
ancestral father. In the next section we will see how the Vaddas gained a
Sinhalese identity through premodern modes of ritual inclusion.

In addition to mixing genes with the locals, Vijaya married a
Śaivite Tamil princess and she brought women for Vijaya�s ministers and
thousands of craftsmen and their families.  As Gananath Obeyesekere states:
�Unlike the Vaddas, the Tamils are not only kinfolk but also co-founders of the
nation. This aspect of the myth has been almost completely forgotten or ignored
in recent times.�^[13]
Bhikkhu Dhammavihari grossly underestimates the influx of South Indians to the
island when he admits that �a few people from the neighbourhood of the adjacent
country moved in here from time to time and soon learnt to co-exist in a spirit
of friendship with the people of their new homeland.�^[14] 
Obeyesekere counters this claim by declaring that �viewed in long term
historical perspective Sinhalas have been for the most part South Indian
migrants who have been sasanized,�^[15]
that is, either having been converted to Buddhism or having come under the
umbrella of the Buddhist �church� (śāsana).  Referring to the
Mahāvamsa�s myth of Sinhabahu, one can make an even stronger argument: the
original �people of the lion� were North Indian Vaisnavas not Buddhists.

Buddhist nationalist claims to racial purity are nipped in the
proverbial bud: the mythical seed of the Sinhalese Buddhist nation is a hybrid
of immigrant Hindus, Indian Buddhists (some Mahāyanists), and indigenous
people.  The Pāli word sihala is found infrequently in the early
chronicles, and when it is used even Dhammavihari admits that it is not in the
sense of a �religio-nationalism.�^[16]  It
definitely does not refer to a pure race of people, as some 19^th
Century Europeans proposed and Buddhist nationalists, in an ironic reverse
Orientalism, assumed.  Buddhist nationalists sometimes use the testimony of
Chinese pilgrims as proof that a distinct Sinhalese identity is not just
projection of current beliefs on a distant past.  The fact that Fa Xian (5^th
Century CE) and Hiuen Ziang (7^th Century CE) refer to Śri Lankā as
�the country of the lion� does not prove ethnic or religious purity at all.

When Vijaya arrives on the island, Visnu is there to greet the
newcomers.  (He had been designated guardian deity of Śri Lankā by the Buddha
himself.) Visnu is asked �What island is this, sir?� �The island of Lankā,� he
answered. �There are no men here, and here no dangers will arise.�[17]
And when a delegation returns to the original �lion country� in India, it brings
back a Vaisnava prince, Panduvasudeva, who succeeds Vijaya as king of Śri Lankā,
still a country of Vaddas, Śaivite Tamils, and North Indian Vaisnavas, but,
significantly, no Buddhists.

Obeyesekere points out that �it
is one of the ironies of ethnicity that the Tamils want a separate state of Ilam,
which means �Sinhala country�; while the Sinhalas want to hang on to Lanka which
is derived from ilankai the Tamil word for �island.�"[18]
Obeyesekere also confirms that �in my reading of
literally hundreds of ritual texts I have not come across one instance of the
country being called other than Lanka or Śri Lankā . . . , except when foreign
gods or traders come to these shores and hail it as the country of the Sinhala (sinhaladesa).�^[19]
Obeyesekere asserts that it is common for outsiders to name a country in terms
of its dominant group: �outsiders see it as a
single entity whereas the insiders are sensitive to the complexities of internal
differentiation,�[20]
differences of which the precolonial rulers of the island were aware and
respected.

            One
incident from the Mahāvamsa (chap. 19) demonstrates the ethnic and
religious harmony that existed during the reign of King Devanamtissa (247-207
BCE), who introduced Buddhism to the island.  The chapter begins with an
elaborate description of the transport of the Bodhi tree from King Ashoka in
India and its arrival in the northern port of Jubukola.  There a brahmin priest
named Tivakka was one of the first to worship the holy tree.  Two weeks later it
arrived in the capital city of Anuradhapura and the tree miraculously sprouted
32 saplings. One was given to Tivakka to plant in his own town, and two others
were given to kśatriyas in the north. This demonstrates that not only was there
ethnic harmony, but Hindus and Buddhists, as many still do today in India and
Nepal, worshiped together honoring common sacred sites and things.

            The
next major event is the campaign of King Dutthagamani (161-137 BCE) that led to
the unification of the island under this Buddhist king.  The Dīpavamsa
(18.50-54), the earliest chronicle from the 4^th Century CE, portrays
the Tamil king Elara as a just ruler and there appear to be no anti-Buddhist
allegations against him.  The fact that Dutthagamani starts from the periphery
of power in the south and must fight 32 other provincial rulers, some of them
presumably Buddhists, on his way north indicates that the actual motivations for
Dutthagamani�s campaign could not have been primarily religious.   The 1912
English version of the Mahāvamsa contains an unfortunate mistranslation
that moves a Buddhist relic from the royal scepter to Dutthagamani�s spear and
has given Buddhist militants an illicit, but even stronger justification for
Buddhist warfare.^[21]

            While
the Dīpavamsa contains only 13 stanzas about Dutthagamani, more than half
the Mahāvamsa is devoted to the famous king.  The authors are determined
to glorify Dutthagamani and they design an edifying narrative framework based on
the story of Aśoka.  The number of provincial rulers who resisted Dutthagamani
is obviously exaggerated and most likely is drawn from the 32 opponents of Aśoka. 
But the most significant similarity to Aśoka is the post-battle malaise that
Dutthagamani suffers over the great number of Tamil causalities.  In chapter 25,
a group of arhats come to console the grieving king and report a
remarkable calculation concerning those killed in the war.  According to the
wise monks, only one enemy soldier had taken full refuge in the Dharma and
another had embraced only the Five Precepts.  This means that there had been
only one and a half real persons killed among thousands of causalities.  This
demonstrates that there has been substantial anti-Tamil sentiment for centuries
and it provides ready fodder for contemporary Sinhalese propangandists.  Even
the great Buddhist scholar Wapola Rahula uses this incident without questioning
its veracity in his defense of Sinhalese nationalism.^[22]

           
Stanley Tambiah demonstrates how Buddhist chroniclers regularly invented
scenarios in order to explain the presence of so many South Indians in their
midst. A very instructive example of this fictitious history is the
rajavaliya (Lineage of Kings) that gives an account of a Sinhalese invasion
of the Chola kingdom in South India in the 12^th Century.^[23] 
The Buddhist king Gajabahu wins a great victory and brings home not only 12,000
Sinhalese prisoners from previous Tamil campaigns but also an equal number of
new Tamil prisoners.  The Tamils were incorporated into Sinhalese society as low
caste workers spread throughout the ancient kingdom of Kandy.  The Buddhist
chroniclers, sensing the national shame of one South Indian invasion (10^th
Century) and another from Kalinga (13^th Century), established a
rhetorical quid pro quo as well as explaining the presence of Tamils in
their southern kingdom.  Incidentally but significantly, the Tamils in the north
placed their Sinhalese captives in sub-caste positions as well.  The Sinhalese
most likely learned caste consciousness from the Hindus and the principal
motivation for marrying into Hindu families was to validate their position as
authentic rulers (kśatriyas).

            As
strict Theravadins, the Buddhist chroniclers also failed to mention the influx
of Mahāyana Buddhists from South India. Nonetheless, their presence is
recorded faithfully in wall paintings, sculpture, and religious practices.  (Dharmapala�s
focus on a savior Buddha who suffered for others may have come from Mahāyana as
well as Christianity.) Furthermore, most Sinhalese Buddhists do not realize that
Buddadatta and Dhammapala, Buddhist scholars that Sinhalese scholars used as
trusted commentators on the Pāli canon, were South Indian Tamils.

Mahāyana Buddhist immigrants from Kerala rose to prominence in
trade and political administration, and the Sinhalese king Bahu VI dedicated a
shrine to their goddess Pattini, whose worship is now wide spread in Śri Lankā.[24]  Significantly
these South Indians stood by their Buddhist king when, in the late 14^th Century, he had to defend his territory from the Tamil king of
Jaffna. One Keralite family married into Sinhalese royalty, and another became
so strong that it operated as a separate principality and played a key role in
turning back the Tamil invasion.  The historical lesson that we can learn is
that during this period the motivations for warfare on all sides were not
primarily religious in nature, and the notion of a pure Buddhist Sinhalese race
constantly defending itself against South Indian �unbelievers� has no foundation
in historical reality.

            Let me
conclude this section with an account of Kirti Sri Rajasinha (1747-82), who was
anathemized by militant monks as �the heretic king� for doing Śaivite worship in
private.  Kīrti Śri was the most famous of the Tamil Nayakkar kings who ruled
from 1739 until 1815, when the British, with aid from Buddhists aristocrats and
monks, overthrew the dynasty.  The Nayakkar line in Śri Lanka actually started
much earlier in the reign of Rajasinghe II (1635-87), who married two Tamil
women from this family.  The Mahāvamsa has nothing but praise for this
great king, who sent an embassy to Thailand to bring back priests who
reestablished the Sinhalese Sangha.  (The last ordained monk had died in 1729.)
He also gave lavish support to Buddhist art, monasteries, and temple building,
including the establishment of the now famous Temple of the Tooth, which, sadly,
has recently been attacked by the Tamil Tigers.  During his reign vipasana
meditation techniques were developed, which have now become popular throughout
the world.

           
One black mark against Kīrti Śri was that he did put some Roman Catholic priests
on trial for distributing anti-Buddhist literature, but he eventually called off
the anti-Catholic campaign and ordered the rebuilding of a church that had been
destroyed. Kīrti Śri appeared to have good relations with the Muslim population,
and he gave one Muslim trader a large tract of land that once belonged to one of
the conspirators who tried unsuccessfully to assassinate him.

            In his
book on Kīrti Śri, John Holt demonstrates how committed he was to fulfilling his
duty as �the quintessential Thervada Buddhist king.�^[26]  Kīrti Śri had studied Aśoka�s reign very carefully (albeit via the unreliable
Mahāvamsa), and Holt describes one ritual that he borrowed from Aśoka that
had substantial dramatic effect.  It is an ordination rite, still performed in
Kandy today, in which the king symbolically abdicates in favor the monk who is
being ordained.  The monk is honored as if he were king, being entertained by
the royal dancers and riding on the royal elephant. 

           
Holt claims that the art
that Kīrti Śri sponsored was a �superb distillation of an authentic Sinhalese
Theravada Buddhist worldview that has been genuinely embraced by Kandyan
Buddhists�; and he �laid the foundation for the manner in which Buddhism has
become a type of civil religion in Kandy for up-country Sinhalese.�^[27]  In
addition to the Aśokan model of Buddhist kingship, Kīrti Śri also used Śakra
(=Vedic Indra) and King Manu, the latter taken from the god-king of the Laws
of Manu.  Kīrti Śri also styled himself as a Bodhisattva, a strategy, Holt
claims, that had much appeal to the peasants and the oppressed.

 

Integrating the �Other� in
Precolonial Śri Lankā

           
Despite frequent conflict and a deeply felt anti-Tamil sentiment among many
Buddhists, why is it that the people of this beautiful island have lived in
relative peace for centuries?  The key, I believe, lies in how premodern
Sinhalese socially and psychologically processed the presence of others in their
midst.  Obeyesekere offers a fascinating account of the worship of various
indigenous deities under the umbrella of the dominant Buddhism: �In Rambadeniya,
after each harvest, villagers will gather together in a collective thanksgiving
ritual for the gods known as the adukku ("food offering"). During this
festival the priest of the . . . or deity cults (never the Buddhist monk) pays
formal homage to the Buddha and the great guardian deities and then actively
propitiates the local gods. . . .�^[28]  After
this the people trek 35 miles to a Buddhist temple where they join many other
villagers, who had just paid respect to their local deities, in an exclusively
Buddhist ceremony.

            Obeyesekere also describes an elaborate ritual in
which the Vaddas, the indigenous people who were originally hunters and gathers,
are validated within the larger Buddhist society.  There is a simulated battle
in which armed Vadda warriors attack a Buddhist temple but are thwarted by
temple guardians.  They continue their fake battle until their spears are broken
and thrown against the temple.  After worshipping at their own altars, they
purify themselves in a nearby river, and then return to the temple where a
Buddhist priest anoints them with sandal water.  They end their ceremony with
the chant of haro-hara to the god Skanda, a god they share not only with
Buddhists, but also with Hindus, because hara is a name for Shiva and
Skanda is his second son.  This ritual of dialectical reconciliation of identity
and difference demonstrates the genius of the premodern worldview, which
produces resolved polarities rather than strict dichotomies and particularized
inclusion rather than complete exclusion.

            Obeyesekere further describes a ritual that allows
the �naturalization� of Tamils into the Sinhalese community.  As in the Vadda
ceremony above, the Tamils, outfitted either as merchants or deities, are
stopped at a symbolic gate by two guardian deities.  The Tamil actors speak with
�a strong Tamil accent and they constantly utter malapropisms, unintended puns,
and spoonerisms. In their ignorance they make insulting remarks about the gods
at the barrier; they do not know Sinhala and Buddhist customs and the audience
has a lot of fun at their expense.�^[29] 
Like the Beast in ballet versions of Beauty and the
Beast, who dances more eloquently as Beauty accepts him, the Tamil players
begin to speak more fluently and accurately and are then accepted by the
Sinhalese community by a symbolic opening of the previously barred gate.

            Not only does ritual provide a way of reconciling
conflict and otherness, but so does myth.  Under the section title �The
Processes of Incorporation and Inclusion,� Tambiah analyzes the story of Pitiye
Deviyo, a Chola prince/deity, who is cursed and exiled because he killed a
calf.  Transformed into a demon, he invades Śri Lanka and defeats Natha, one of
the four Buddhist guardian deities.  (It is significant to note that the three
other guardian deities–Skanda, Visnu, and Saman–appear to have Hindu origins.)
Natha�s defeat is mythically rationalized by his decision not �to commit sin by
waging further war.�^[30]
Natha is promoted to the status of Bodhisattva because of this vow of
nonviolemce, and, significantly enough, Pitiye is incorporated a subordinate
regional deity.  (Here is another excellent example of premodern inclusion,
whereas modern Christian missionaries, especially Protestant, would insist on
total exclusion of the alien deity.) According to the legend, Pitiye established
irrigation systems and rice farming and the locals turn from hunting and raising
cattle. Rice farming in Śri Lanka now enjoys high caste status, whereas hunting
(the original occupation of the Vaddas) and cattle raising are low caste.

            Obeyesekere observes that ��nation� is an alien word
that has no parallel in the Sinhala lexicon. It is śāsana that takes its
place.�^[31]  
He translates śāsana as �church,� but not in the sense of an established
church where every citizen must join and foreswear all other beliefs, but more
in the sense of an overarching moral community in which people find meaning
without losing deeply rooted ties to their villages. This fusion of local and
central worship parallels the relation between the authority of the king, who,
unlike the modern nation state, allows considerable autonomy in his outlying
realm.  Stanley Tambiah explains:  �The polities modeled on mandala-type
patterning had central royal domains surrounded by satellite principalities and
provinces replicating the center on a smaller scale and at the margins had even
more autonomous tributary principalities.�^[32]
Tambiah gives this type of polity the engaging name �pulsating galactic
polities,� and he believes that this form of political organization is better at
integrating minorities and respecting their autonomy.  Ironically, Buddhist
nationalists frequently use medieval symbols of Sinhalese political unity that
are actually more federalist in meaning than the modernist homogenous unity that
they impose on them.[33]

            By keeping church and state separate the modern
nation state has succeeded thus far in satisfying its minorities, but serious
problems are beginning to arise as Muslims in Europe feel alienated in an
overwhelmingly secular society.  In the United States increasing larger number
of Christians are concerned about a society that has lost its values.  The
homogenizing effects of modern secular culture do indeed appear to be
destructive of traditional values. Obeyesekere observes that contemporary Śri
Lankan society is also in the midst of a moral crisis with high murder and
suicide rates and that fact that there are more liquor shops in the countryside
than rural banks. Obeyesekere also reports drinking, meat eating, and financial
corruption among the monks and lay supporters. The ancient Buddhist śāsana
appeared to serve the diverse society of Śri Lanka relatively well until
Europeans came with exclusivist notion of church that tore open the fabric of
native religious communities.

 

The Misdirected Trajectory of 19^th Century Śri
Lankān Buddhism

The neo-Hinduism and neo-Buddhism of the last two centuries can
be instructively explained as a form of "affirmative� or �reverse� Orientalism,
a response to the negative Orientalism that arose out of the first Western
encounters with Indian culture.  Negative Orientalism viewed the South Asian
people as uncivilized, irrational, superstitious, lazy, cowardly, and
effeminate.  (The British exempted the Pashtuns and the Gurkhas from this
characterization.) While granting the technological advantage of Western
culture, Annie Besant and the theosophists promoted affirmative Orientalism, a
view that proclaimed the spiritual superiority of South Asian civilization and
the nobility of its commitment to the virtues of peace, nonviolence, and
compassion.  Ironically, Gandhi learned to appreciate the value of his own
Indian tradition from his association with theosophists in London.  Gandhi
joined most Hindus in accepting the theosophical axiom that Buddhism and Jainism
were essentially the same as Hinduism.  What was lost in this rather superficial
universalism was a respect for the autonomy and integrity of Buddhism and
Jainism, not to mention the other religions that were fused together in the
unscholarly amalgam sometimes called the �perennial philosophy.�

On May 17, 1880, theosophists Madam Blavatsky and Colonel Henry
Steele Olcott arrived in Śri Lanka and proclaimed that Buddhism was a natural
expression of their own spiritual universalism. They quickly established the
Colombo Buddhist Theosophical Society one month later on June 17.  Col. Olcott
stayed on to inspire Sinhalese Buddhists not only to recover, but to
substantially redefine, their own tradition, and to respond to what they
perceived to be the destructive effects of increasing numbers of Christian
missionaries.  When the British took over Śri Lanka in 1815, they promised to
protect the integrity of Buddhism, but instead they established English medium
schools in which Buddhism was portrayed as a superstitious and other worldly
religion.  Under Olcott�s leadership 460 Buddhist schools, including leading
colleges such as Ananda, Nalanda, Dharmapala, Dharmaraja, Visakha, and Musaeus
College were established.  One of the results of this Buddhist Counter
Reformation is that there are far fewer Christians in Śri Lanka today than there
were in the 19^th Century, a fact that contemporary missionaries use
to counter the anti-conversion bill.

Col. Olcott�s claim that Buddhism was a rational philosophy and
not a religion led Sinhalese Buddhists to reformulate their faith in a way that
made it more European than Asian.  Olcott�s Buddhist Catechism, published
in 1881, translated into 22 languages and now in its 40^th printing,
has had a powerful effect on how many Euro-Americans understand Buddhism.  More
significantly, however, this fully modernist book about Buddhism is still part
of the curriculum of Śri Lankān schools.

By the far the most influential Śri Lankān to come out of this
historical setting was Anagarika Dharmapala (1864-1933), the founding father of
Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism. Born into a petite bourgeois family, Dharmapala
went to Christian schools where, early on, he was very sensitive to the negative
way in which Buddhism was being portrayed.  He changed his name from David to
Dharmapala (�Guardian of Dharma�), and in taking on the other honorific
Anagarika (�homeless�) he, in anticipation of Gandhi, wanted his followers to
interpret this as a form of this-worldly renunciation. Even in his asceticism he
still preserved the entrepreneurial virtues��methodism, punctuality,
cleanliness, orderliness, time-consciousness,� as Seneviratne lists them[34]
–that he learned in his family business and subtly made part of his vision of a
modernized Buddhism.

Dharmapala worked closely with Olcott and together they made a
very successful journey to Japan in 1888. Although Dharmapala had some
disagreements with Olcott, he followed him in the Protestant form of Buddhism
that we see in his followers today. He founded the
Mahabodhi Society in 1891 and initiated campaigns to return Buddha Gaya, the
site of the Buddha�s Tempation and Enlightenment, to Buddhist hands and to
established Buddhist missions throughout the world.  In this regard,
Dharmapala declared that �with Buddhism Ceylon shall yet become the beacon light
of Religion to the World,�[35]
echoing similar nationalist sentiments of America as, in Ronald Reagan�s words,
"a great shining city on a hill," derived from Jesus� proclamation that his
followers would be �the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot
be hid" (Matthew 5:14). Dharmapala, however, claims precedence for Buddhism as
the true beacon of civilizing light, which established a land of righteousness
in Śri Lanka long before the birth of Jesus Christ. It was �Semitic barbarism,�
which includes both Dravidian Tamils and Judeo-Christians, who destroyed this
great cultural and religious achievement.[36]

The Buddhist canon does not use ārya as a racial term;
rather, it is an honorific for all those who embrace the Dharma.  Furthermore,
as Mahinda Palihawadana has argued, the Buddha believed that racism and
nationalism are the result of flawed perception.  Like the Body of Christ, there
are no distinctions at all within the body of the Buddha.  Perceiving a
�difference by birth� is, as Palihawadana explains, �a mental propensity (ditthanusaya),
something invested with emotional content. The classic example is the idea of
me, my self; and, compounded with other conventional views, my clan, my country,
my language, my nation, and not least, my creed.�[37]
Ultra nationalists take their own nāma-gotta–name and clan�and
mistakenly believe that it is an essential part of their identity. 

In 1908 Dharmapala declared that Buddhism was �completely
identified with the racial individuality of the people.�[38]
As Peter Schalk states: �This is probably one of the most conflict creating
public statements made in the 20th century. It is also a statement that is
detrimental nationally and internationally to the reputation of Buddhism. . . .
He stated explicitly that Lanka belongs to the Buddhist Sinhalese and for the
Tamils there is South India.�[39]
It is unfortunate that American evangelical Christian activists unwittingly
spread the myth of the Aryan Sinhalese.  One of their websites states that the
Buddhist portion of the island�s population (75 percent) is Sinhala and Aryan,
obviously implying that the Śri Lankān Christians, Muslims, and Hindus are not. 
Incidentally, if there is any historical substance to a North Indian origin of
the original immigrants to the island, then one could claim an Aryan origin, but
only linguistically, for these people.

It is significant to note that in 1935, two years after
Dharmapala�s death, three Tamil members of the State Council supported the
effort to return Buddha Gaya to Buddhist control, most likely assuming that, in
addition to a gesture of goodwill, that they would receive something in return
for their own projects.  Sadly, the favor was not reciprocated as Buddhists
hardened their nationalist prejudices. In 1936, embracing a reverse Orientalism
and drawing on an alleged racial superiority of Aryan Buddhists, non-Buddhists
were excluded from the Board of Ministers of the Donoughmore Constitution. 
Later the Citizenship Act of 1948 withdrew citizenship from the estate Tamils
(not restored until the 1980s), and finally in 1956 English and Tamil were
suppressed in favor of Sinhalese as the only official language.  This made it
very difficult for most Tamils to read and fill out government documents and to
communicate their grievances.  The supreme irony is that multilingualism was one
of cultural ideals of medieval Sinhalese society, where the mastery of six
languages was considered to be the educated norm.

The
most striking evidence of reverse Orientalism in Dharmapala�s thought is his
attempt, one initiated earlier on behalf of Hinduism by the Brahmo Samaj in
Calcutta, to show that Buddhism is fully compatible with European science and
rationalism. In his History of an Ancient Civilization, Dharmapala claims
that �higher Buddhism is pure science.  It has no place for theology. . . . It
is the religion of absolute freedom, which is to be gained avoiding all evil,
doing all good, and purifying the heart.  . . . It is the friend of enlightened
progress, and preaches the sublimest truths of meritorious activity.�[40]
In his journal Dharmapala wrote a weekly column entitled �Facts That You Should
Know,� a modernist title that would have sounded quite alien to a medieval
Buddhist. It is true that the Buddha�s method can be called �empiricist,� and
there are constructive parallels that can be drawn to David Hume, and even
better comparisons to William James, but these insights should be used to erase
the negatives of European Orientalism, not to propose an equally destructive
Asian exceptionalism.

Dharmapala learned much from his
sojourn in Calcutta. Both he and the Indian nationalists rejected the sacred
power of images, myth, ritual, and priestly mediation.  Both were enamored by
modernist concepts of individual reason, progress, and the importance of social
activism.  Both believed in a Protestant-like priesthood of all believers and
that spiritual liberation would be both personal and social. Dharmapala may not
have known that the Ramakrishna mission was modeled
directly on the Buddhist Sangha, but its social activism derived much more, as
Seneviratne maintains,[41]
from Christianity than any South Asian tradition.  (Similarly, ahimsā is
an Indian concept, but it is clear that Gandhi�s social and political use of it
was due to his reading of Socrates, Thoreau, Tolstoy, and Ruskin.)  Walpola
Rahula�s thesis that the Buddha meant his disciples to be the like the social
workers of the modern welfare state has been roundly criticized as anachronistic
and yet another form of reverse Orientalism. 

It is significant, nevertheless, that the immediate followers of
the Hindu nationalist Dayananda and the Buddhist Dharmapala went into social
service not politics.  Indeed, one could say early signs indicated that Hindu
and Buddhist nationalism would be progressive and constructive. The darker
aspects of Dharmapala�s religious nationalism did not come to the fore until
1956.  A first generation disciple Kalukondayave (1895-1977) did not believe
that monks should be involved in party politics.  Working closely with Tamil and
Muslim officials, he saw himself primarily as a social worker and teacher of
morality.[42]
Hendiyagala Silaratna (1913-1982), another Dharmapalite monk, learned Tamil and
wrote a booklet praising the Tamils for preserving their culture against
European advances.[43]
In comparison he thought that his own culture was far more decadent; he
especially commended Tamil women for their modest dress.

Seneviratne describes the early Dharmapalite monks as
�overlooking cultural and ideological differences among the lay leadership,
astutely addressing their commonness rather than their differences. . . . ,� and
he also praises next generation of monks in the Vidyodaya monastery for their
�healthy and realistic attitude towards western influences which [they] were
able to creatively generate, as they bravely resisted the ethno-religious
exclusivist impulse that constituted one half their progenitor Dharmapala�s
philosophy and activist project.�[44]

Buddhist nationalism has been more successful in Śri Lankā for
several reasons.  Compared to India, religious authority is much more
centralized and unified in Sinhalese Buddhism.  In the Dharmapalite vision
Buddhist monks, in the absence of Sinhalese royalty, were to do the �work of
kings,� the title of Seneviratne�s thorough study of Dharmapala�s legacy. A much
higher literacy rate has allowed for an effective spread of Buddhist
Protestantism through print media and the radio.  A Dharmapalite monk Hinatiyana
Dhammaloka (1900-81) sometimes did ten sermons a week and was considered to be
the best Buddhist preacher in Śri Lankā.[45]
Copying the Christian model, Dharmapala proposed that long rituals be replaced
by short sermons that focused on morality and social action.

On February 13, 1946, the faculty at the Vidyālankara monastery
approved without dissent a resolution declaring that monks should become
politically active. There was strong reaction from the press and the government;
some critics said it was a Communist plot and some proposed that political monks
be disrobed or even imprisoned.  The monks at Vidyodaya published their protest
in a journal founded by Dharmapala. They also criticized the dissident monks on
doctrinal grounds, alleging that they rejected the Buddha�s omniscience and the
theory of karma and rebirth. 

The Vidhyālankara monks moved the Dharmapalite revolution from
nonsectarian social action in the villages to a political ideology that fused
language, religion, and state.  In their 1946 resolution they stated: �We hope
from this campaign to make Śri Lankā a dharmadvipa (�light of dharma�),
to enrich Buddhism, and to make people free of suffering and disease and make
them whole; and to make monks a category of people who do not simply exist
[doing nothing] but who work selflessly for the good of the religion and its
adherents.�[46]
The original intention was that this was to be accomplished outside of party
affiliation.  But already in April, 1946, the radical monks had formed the Lankā
Eksat Bhiksu Mandalaya, the United Bhikku Organization of Śri Lankā.  The seeds
of a highly politicized Sinhalese Buddhism were now sown. As Seneviratne states:
�By the mid 1950s [it] turned into a hegemonic Sinhala Buddhist chauvinism.�[47]

Before concluding this section, some historical balance is now in order to
counter the previous focus on Buddhist nationalism. In the British
constitutional reforms of 1911, the Tamils, with only 10 percent of population,
were given 42 percent of the representation.  In a move to protect their
position, high caste Tamils, previously favored by the British, did object to a
more equitable formula in the first Donoughmore proposals in 1927. These high
caste Tamils, distinct from the more recent tea estate Tamils, thought the
Sinhalese were a �uncivilized and backward community,� and their spokesman Sir
Ponnambalam Ramanathan stated: �Although we may be small in numbers, in terms of
caste, official power etc., we are the most powerful community in Śri Lanka.
Both the Sinhalese and the Muslims have accepted this. Therefore, when the
British leave, it is the Tamils who should rightfully inherit political power.�[48]

In
1947 Sinhalese representation was capped at 55 percent.  It is Athureliye
Rathana�s contention that the Tamils did not begin proposing a separate state
until after they realized that they were not going to achieve majority power in
the legislature.[49] 
The Tamil State Party was indeed established in 1949, almost a decade before the
riots began, but moderate Tamils still prevailed until the Tamil Tigers came to
prominence in the late 1970s. The adoption of the 1972 Constitution that
strengthened the Buddhist Sinhalese majority was an event that radicalized many
Tamils. Unfortunately, Tamil moderates did not fare very well among the
militants and many were executed on the orders of Tamil Tiger leaders.

Constructive Postmodernism:
Integrating the Modern and Premodern

            In these concluding
remarks I would first like to draw a comparison to similar developments in
America, and also offer constructive postmodernism as a possible solution. 
Among the many Christian nationalists, George Grant stands out as one of the
more extreme.  Here is one of his clearest pronouncements:
�Christian politics has as its primary intent the conquest of the land–of men,
families, institutions, bureaucracies, courts, and governments for the Kingdom
of Christ. It is to reinstitute the authority of God’s Word as supreme over all
judgments, over all legislation, over all declarations, constitutions, and
confederations.�[50]
Grant�s �dominion theology� is heavily influenced by
Rousas J.
Rushdoony whose movement is also called Christian
Reconstruction, one that requires Christians to �reconstruct all things in
conformity to God’s order, not in terms of man’s desire for peace."[51] 
This passage is from his Institutes of Biblical Law in which he proposes
that all the Old Testament laws be enforced, including capital punishment for
apostasy and homosexuality.

            There is an ethnic form
of Christian nationalism in the current neo-Confederate movement in the American
South.  In my own college town a booklet entitled Southern Slavery As It Was
appeared in 1996.  The authors, one a local Calvinist pastor and the other a
founding director of the League of the South, blame abolitionists and
particularly Unitarians for the Civil War.  They also argue that Southern
Christians had biblical sanction to own slaves as long as they treated them
humanely.  The authors declare that �there has never been a multi-racial society
which has existed with such mutual intimacy and harmony in the history of the
world."[52]
The League of the South proposes that 15 Southern State should form a new
Confederacy based on Celtic Calvinism and biblical law.  Attempts by these
thinkers to trace their Southern heritage to Scotland is just as muddled as Śri
Lankān Buddhists claiming pure Aryan ancestors.[53]
The neo-Confederate wish to make the Southern States a refuge for true
Christianity in the same way that Buddhism desire to make Śri Lankā the Island
of the Dharma.

A major
difference between Buddhist and Christian nationalists is that former have, as
we have seen, a modern worldview whereas the latter generally have a premodern
worldview. Christian nationalists join Islamic fundamentalists in rejecting
nearly all aspects of modernism�liberal democracy, the use of reason, and equal
rights for all. (Interestingly enough, even though the theosophists supported
modern reform in Hinduism and Buddhism, their spiritual universalism was
philosophical premodern.)  One would never hear of a Christian or Muslim
fundamentalist disputing the truth of their scriptures, but Buddhist nationalist
Dhammavihari ridicules the Mahāvamsa for its historical distortions.[54]
Unwittingly following Thomas Jefferson�s example of reducing scripture to a
modernist core, the Hindu Dayananda and the Buddhist Dharmapala wanted to rid
their scriptures of ritual, antiquated laws, and incoherent dogma.  (Note that
Christian and Muslim fundamentalists want these laws restored.) In an exact
parallel with the �Jeffersonian Bible,� Dharmapala, as Seneviratne explains,
�expressed the need to sift �the pure teachings of the gentle Nazarene� from
�later theological accretions.��[55]
In light of the recent attacks on Christians, it is certainly an irony that
Dharmapala urged Śri Lankān Christians to modernize their religion along similar
lines and integrate fully within Sinhalese society.

Some of the
greatest achievements of modernism have been protecting religious freedom and
insulating the state from intrusions of religious factions. Religious
fundamentalists around the world appear committed to undermine these safeguards.
The anti-conversion bills in Śri Lankā and India have already been mentioned,
but as early as 1956 the Śri Lankān Freedom Party (SLFP) proposed a Buddhist
Department to recover and to enrich the island�s Buddhist heritage. In the
election of 1956 3-4,000 monks went door to door campaigning for the SLFP.   The
United National Party (UNP), which was defeated, was portrayed as anti-Buddhist,
just as the Democrats were branded as anti-Christian in the 2004 U.S. election.
Within two years time  Śri Lankā erupted in violence.  In 1958 some Tamils
attempted a Gandhian satyāgraha, but they were met with violence rather
than dialogue.  In the East 10,000 Tamils were fired on by police, over 100
Tamils were killed by Sinhalese goons in the Gal Oya Valley.

Recognizing the
relative success of premodern peoples to integrate otherness and reconcile
differences, constructive postmodernists wish to reestablish the premodern
harmony of humans, society, and the sacred without losing the integrity of the
individual, the possibility of meaning, the intrinsic value of nature, and the
great achievements of liberal democracy. They believe that French
deconstructionists are throwing out the proverbial baby with the bath water. The
latter wish to reject not only the modern worldview but any worldview
whatsoever. Constructive postmodernists want to preserve the concept of
worldview and propose to reconstruct one that avoids the liabilities of both
premodernism and modernism.   If one reads carefully the works of classical
liberals such John Locke, Adam Smith, Immanuel Kant, and J. S. Mill, one will
find that they did not intend the state to be morally neutral in the sense of
contemporary procedural liberalism.

We need to
rethink the relationship between religion and politics.  Both Gandhi and King
brought their religious beliefs into their political activism, and yet it is
usually only the fundamentalists that liberals criticize for doing this.
Anti-abortionist are entirely correct that they have just as much right to
perform acts of civil disobedience at abortion clinics as Gandhi did at the
British salt works or King did at the whites-only lunch counters. The reason why
Gandhi and King were not widely criticized for injecting religion into politics
is because their message was always religiously and culturally inclusive. 
Fundamentalists usually divide and exclude, and we must trust ourselves and our
democratic institutions to moderate such views or ban the worst as
unconstitutional.

In other work I have proposed a reformed liberalism based on the
works of Franklin I. Gamwell, Stephen Macedo, the
later John Rawls, and William Galston.[56] 
This political theory is most compatible with constructive postmodernism and
would have the following advantages:  (1) it would insist on a logic of polarity
rather dichotomy; (2) it would promote tolerant inclusion versus intolerant
exclusion; (3) it would balance repetition and ritual modernist linear
progression and always making a fetish of the new with repetition and meaningful
ritual; and (4) it would complement the procedural bureaucratic state with a
moral community of strong civic virtues. One can preserve religious liberty and
prevent the dominance of one religion while at the same time maintaining the
civic virtues necessary for a society in which all of its citizens can flourish
according to the dictates of their own cultural and religious preferences.

ENDNOTES