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Response to Venerable Professor Dhammavihari's "Sri Lankan Chronicle Data"
By Professor Heinz Bechert
We appreciate the Venerable Professor Dhammavihari's very
personal and rather emotional confession of his understanding of Buddhism as a
member of the Sinhala-Buddhist community. This aspect of his contribution can
hardly be discussed in my response nor should I discuss here his personal understanding
of the "healthy growth of the Sinhala nation" (p. 5), which he contrasts with
the assumed 'menacing hostile neighbours in action' (p. 7). I should also avoid
here discussing the rather emotional accusation that 'Western scholars" would
have purposely distorted historical facts by "criminal errors in the hands of
translators" (p. 12). Here a very minor point, viz, the interpretation of one
particular word, kunta in Mahavamsa 25.1 is concerned, but I shall return to this particular passage later on.
At this point, it is necessary to make some remarks on the
sources under discussion here. The earliest chronicle from Sri Lanka that has
been handed down to us is the Dipavamsa, compiled in the 4th century C.E. from
earlier sources that are lost to us. Here, no reference to the "relic in the spear"
is found. However, it is explicitly said that Elara, the adversary of Dutthagamani,
acted as a just ruler, "avoiding the four evil paths of lust, hatred, fear and
ignorance" (Di 18.50). Thus, the Dipavamsa provides no evidence of hostile actions
of king Elara against Buddhism. Dutthagamani Abhaya thereafter, dethroned Elara
and, "killing 32 princes he ruled for 24 years" (Dipavamsa 18.54).
The later classical chronicle of ancient Sri Lanka, viz,
the Mahavamsa, is a rather elaborated work. It is necessary to analyze its composition
in order to evaluate its contents. It is a combination of (1) a Buddhist work
that was written down for the edification of its readers, (2) a work of artificial
poetry (kavya) in the Indian tradition, and (3) a work of national Sinhala historiography
written and handed down by Buddhist monks, incorporating historical facts as well
as mythological elements. In certain parts of the Mahavamsa, and particularly
in the Dutthagamani saga, various folk tales were included to form what is called
the 'Dutthagamani epic.'(1) Whereas many other periods of the history of Sri Lanka
are dealt with very shortly, the Dutthagamani story comprises more than half of
the Mahavamsa. viz. 863 verses. In the Dipavamsa, only 13 stanzas in all are devoted
to this king.
Thus the Mahavamsa represents in these chapters - and partly
in other chapters as well - a fourth element, viz, it incorporates the national
epic of the Sinhala people which may be compared with the Iliad of the ancient
Greeks, the Nibelung epic of mediaeval Germany, etc. All these poems combine historical
reflections with mythology in one text.
Therefore, it makes no sense to discuss the question of the
historicity of the motive of the "relic in the spear", which is the main argument
of the learned speaker. Motives of this type are rather common. Let me quote from
the learned commentary in the new translation of the Mahavamsa by Ananda W.P.
Guruge:(2)
Dutthagamani's career as a national liberator has recently
received the closest attention of historians, sociologists and political scientists
who have not failed to observe the contradiction between the non-violence, which
Buddhism expounds, and the association of Buddhist symbols and bhikkhus in a war.
For an analysis, see: Alice Greenwald, "The Relic in the Spear: Historiography
and the Saga of Dutthagamani," Religion and the Legitimation of Power in Sri Lanka,
ed. Bardwell L. Smith (1978), pp. 13-35.
Unfortunately this was not mentioned by our learned speaker.
We must not understand these chapters of the Mahavamsa as historical records in
the modern sense of the word, particularly because this work was composed by the
end of the 5th century C.E., i.e. more than 600 years after Dutthagamani who ruled
from 161-137 B.C.E. It is fanciful to use the Rasavahin for additional historical
evidence, a collection of popular tales compiled in the 13th century C.E., i.e.
ca. 1300 years after the events described. By the way, the relevant chapters of
this work together with its source work Sahassavatthuppakarana have been critically
edited now by Sven Bretfeld,(3) a work that seems to have escaped the notice of
the learned speaker.
The relevant ideological statements in the chronicle must
be understood in the context of the close connection of national and religious
observances in the so-called traditional Buddhism. In her paper mentioned before,
Alice Greenwald points out that in the Sinhala tradition, "One was to gain sense
of national heritage, one's ecclesiastic and imperial, spiritual and national,
racial, in fact, line of descent from the most exalted Buddhist figures" (p. 20),
and, thereby, "From the viewpoint of historiography ... only a Buddhist king,
and ... only one descended from the Buddhologically authenticated Sinhalese, had
the legitimate right to rule ... Ceylon" (p. 23). It is in this context, that
we understand the myth of the "relic in the spear". At the same time, we now understand
the background of the so-called Moladanda rebellion of 1760 when members of the
Sinhala nobility and of the ecclesiastic establishment including a Mahanayakathera
attempted to murder King Kirtisrirajasimha. This event was purposely not recorded
in the so-called Culavamsa, the later continuation of the Mahavamsa, but it is
testified by the Sasanavatirnavarnana and by some historical documents.(4)
In the same volume in which Greenwald's paper is found, I
argue that it was from the conflict with Tamil invaders from South India that
Sinhala nationalism, and, at the same time, Sinhala historiography originated
at a rather early date.
Our conference in Bath Spa University College was organized
with the aim to find ways to promote peace in Sri Lanka and to contribute to a
solution of the traditional ethnic conflict. There have been periods of peace
and of integration of South Indian immigrants in the history of Sri Lanka indeed,
but there is no time to deal with these periods now. At the present time, peace
can only be promoted if all sections of society in the Island accept modernization,
and if they understand national myths as what they really are, and not as guidelines
for the perpetuation of their inherited hatred.
As far as Buddhist tradition is concerned, modernization
requires the liberation from the traditional interrelation of religions and secular
power and from the so-called monastic landlordism which originated in the mediaeval
society of the Island. For the Buddhists, it is necessary to return to the values
as taught by the Buddha himself and found in the ancient canonical texts, and
not in the later works like the chronicles and the commentaries or sub-commentaries.
Original Buddhism was rightly characterized by Max Weber
in his famous work on the sociology of religion as: "a quite specific, refined
soteriology for intellectuals" "... a specifically unpolitical and antipolitical
class religion, or, more accurately, a religious learned teaching of an itinerant,
intellectually schooled mendicant order of monks."(5)
By the way, I may recall here Professor P.D. Premasiri's
excellent comments on the question if there is the concept of a righteous war
in canonical Buddhism. He has clearly described the relevant statements in the
Tripitaka.
It is necessary to understand that original Buddhism was
not conceived as a religion of the masses, but early Buddhists were one religious
community amongst a considerable number of religious movements including the followers
of Vedic tradition, Ajivikas, Jains etc.
It was only as a result of a rather fundamental transformation
that Buddhism emerged as a religion of the masses. With transformation, the close
relation of Buddhism and state, Sinhala-Buddhist nationalism as well as religiously
motivated political activities of the Buddhist clergy and lay followers originated.
A main feature of a modern society is the strict separation of religious and secular
institutions by all parties involved. For Buddhists, this would mean, at the same
time, to get rid of traditional national mythology and to return to the principles
of the original teachings of the Buddha. Unfortunately, the paper of the Venerable
Dhammavihari does not seem to be helpful in this respect.
Endnotes:
(1) See Wilhelm Geiger, Dipavamsa and Mahavamsa, pp. 19-22. Return to text.(2) Ananda W.P. Guruge, Mahavamsa (Colombo 1989), p. 895. Return to text.(3) Sven Bretfeld (ed.), Das singhalesische Nationalepos von Konig Dutthagamani, 2001. Return to text.(4) See L. S. Dewaraja, The Kandyan Kingdom (Colombo 1972), pp. 108-118. Return to text.(5) Quoted in Heinz Bechert, Internationales Asienforum 22 (1991):181f. Return to text.
