Sri Lanka - History of Buddhism

Buddhism was brought into Sri Lanka around 2400 years ago by the great Indian king Asoka. He sent his son Mahinda to Sri Lanka to help spread the message of Buddha. Asoka's conversion to Buddhism after the battle of Kalinga is another interesting story, perhaps for another time. At that time, a sapling of the Bodhi Tree under which Buddha had meditated was also brought to Sri Lanka. The tree is venerated in Sri Lanka and is the site of a great pilgrimage for Sri Lankans.

Bodhi Tree at Anuradhapura

Sri Lanka has the longest continuous history of Buddhism across all Buddhist countries. India, where Buddhism originated and was once the state religion of the grand Mauryan empire, couldn't sustain itself. Although Hindu kings patronized Buddhism, a heretic Shaiva king chopped the Bodhi tree. The University at Nalanda, a treasure chest of knowledge, burnt for 3 months after being set on fire by Muslim invaders who also destroyed numerous stupas and viharas. Once it lost the support of the kings, Buddhism would find it difficult to survive.

Soon Buddhism faced an identity crisis. Vaishanavism abandoned the animal sacrifices that Buddhism abhorred in Brahminism and started practicing vegetarianism. Shaivites disregarded the caste-hierarchy inherent in scriptures. Overall, ideas were freely borrowed from Buddhism ranging from the Sangha (the Buddhist monastic order) to Tantrism. Shankaracharya stole the wind from Buddhism's sail and not much later, Buddha was one of the avatars of Vishnu in India. Its funny to note that Vishnu is one of the four guardians of Buddhist temple in Sri Lanka!

Princess Hemamali carrying Buddha's tooth in her hair

In Sri Lanka too, the Sinhala kings had to seek refuge from the invaders from South India - most specifically the mighty Cholas. Cholas under Raja Raja I and his son Rajendra I, creators of the magnificent Brihadeswara temple at Thanjavur, destroyed the city of Anuradhapura and established a new capital at Polonnaruwa. Eventually, they were overthrown by Vijaybahu I and Buddhism was reinstated as the state religion. Buddhism continued to florish under Parakramabahu the Great. After his death, the kingdom was again brutally sacked by Kalinga Magha who established the Kingdom of Jaffna in the north. Jaffna remained unconquered until the arrival of Portuguese in 16th century.

Sri Lanka has had a tumultuous political history. The claim to the throne was laid by the no less than the Cholas, Pandyas, Sinhalas, Kalingas and even a king from far away Kannauj! The capital was shifted from one city to another by one king after being destroyed by another. However, the light of Buddhism was kept burning with the support of ordained monks from Burma and the Buddhist clergy was cleansed time and again.

Crowd outside the Sacred Tooth Temple 

It was believed that the holder of Sacred tooth relic had the right to the throne of the kingdom. Even today Esara Perahara (festival of the tooth) is celebrated with great fervour in July/August at Kandy. It is attended by a large number of people who flock to see the relic. It is a very colorful sight with fire-dances and colorfully decorated elephants. I was fortunate enough to be in Kandy on the day , the Perahara started. However crowd, fire dances and elephants galore in India and hold no special interest for me therefore I moved on to Colombo.

Crowds lined up for the Perahara

Although, I originally intended to write about changing face of Buddhism in Sri Lanka in this post, I see that I have wandered too much into the history so I would put a stop here. I would write about that in the next post.

Passing By
Due to the Perahara, the Pizza Hut outlet near the Sacred Tooth temple was closed for dine-in. Instead, it had been converted to a gallery where one could book a seat and watch the Perahara pass by. The guy tried to sell me a ticket for 4000 Sri Lankan Rupees. When I told him that I was leaving the city he reduced it to 2000! I had to convince him that I was really leaving!!! And then he lightened up, beamed a smile and said, "You must be from Punjab".

Pizza Hut converted into a gallery (chairs can be seen)

Previous Entries:
Sri Lanka - Introduction
Sri Lanka - Cleanliness
Sri Lanka - Religion

Sri Lanka - Religion

Sri Lanka is a very religious country. Having said that, it is not much of a news for Indians who are perceived to be a highly religious community. That perception is not entirely true, considering there are at least 3 states in USA that think of themselves are more religious than Indians! However, there seems to be no doubt about the religiousity of Sri Lankans. An overwhelming 99% of Sri Lankans consider religion as an important part of their daily life - which is 3rd highest in the world (behind Egypt and Bangladesh).

Majority of Sri Lankans are Buddhists and unabashedly so. A small number of Hindus (largely Tamils) stay in the north province of Jaffna and were brought to Sri Lanka to work on the tea plantations. My hotel owner in Dambulla belonged to such a family of plantation workers who made it good. A part of his family, including his parents still lived in India. Actually, he was pretty happy, once he got to know that we were Indians. He tried to coax "kunchum kunchum" Tamil out of me but all that I could manage was "Taamil illa" or "Taamil Teriyadu".

Buddha and Hindu deities coexist peacefully in Sri Lankan society. Portraits of Laxmi, Karthikeyan, Vishnu, Ganesha or even Saraswati are to be found along side a meditating Buddha. Shiva, however is conspiously absent. I found the reason for that after I visited the Sacred Tooth Relic Temple in Kandy. Shaivaites have been historically portrayed in a negative light for having persecuted Buddhist Kings of Sri Lanka and attempting to destroy Sacred Tooth relic of Buddha. Shiva temples (kovils) are to be found most abundantly in Jaffna and sparingly in Colombo.

Mohammadans can be instantly recognized with their clothes - the long black dress worn by women who huddle together, the more progressive ones made out with bright colored salwar kameez. Men as always do not have to follow the dress code so they were busy herding a group of women and children. A marked contrast from the otherwise liberated and easy going Sri Lankans. I hardly saw any mosque around my trip except may be in Colombo.

There are statues of Buddha, Ganesha, Laxmi and Jesus in a glass case around the city squares. The glass cases are kept neat & clean and unlike India, not sprinkled with food grains, colors, flowers, vermillion or blackened by the smoke from incense sticks. Also, there are no priests who keep a vigil on these sites. There is no forced occupation of land after building a religious structure.

In the next part I will write about Buddhism in Sri Lanka and its changing face.

Image Courtesy - Wiki User Obi2canibe

Previous Entries:
Sri Lanka - Introduction
Sri Lanka - Cleanliness

Sri Lanka - Cleanliness

I imagined Sri Lanka as a third world country with a culture and society similar to southern states of India, specifically Tamil Nadu. This also lead me to assume that Sri Lanka would share our third world problems too. Yes, they do share our problems but not all of them. There are some problems that we seem to have copyrighted in this holy land of ours.

Let's take cleanliness - the country is amazingly clean! There are no open garbage dumps, no rotting food and organic products strewn alongside the road. At some places, there might be an odd plastic wrapper, polythene bag or paper lying around but that is not commonplace. I am sure there would be garbage dumps somewhere but I must say they have been well hidden!

I do not know the exact reason for this. Is it because people don't litter around or because the local administration puts a lot of emphasis on cleanliness or because the janitors are ultra efficient! Whatever the reason might be, it is a pleasant change from what we all are used to see in India.

Passing by

Indian (read Bollywood) movies and cricketers are quite popular in Sri Lanka. In fact, the first person I met outside the airport (a policeman) spoke of Shahrukh Khan. I wanted to give him a piece of my mind, but then, at 3 a.m. in the morning it was hardly the time for that. Besides, he quickly moved on to Malinga and Kohli. So I had to let it go.

Also, this image is NOT from Sri Lanka. It is from Jaipur, India. Source - wiki user Marcin.

Previous Entries:
Sri Lanka - Introduction

Sri Lanka - Introduction

Ayubowan.

I am writing this entry to record my observations about my visit to Sri Lanka. I have made the observations on the country, its people, language, culture, socio-economic conditions, society etc. Whenever I fail to conjure some hullabaloo about such esteemed topics, I will write about some thing flimsier. I might have erred at times or been too judgmental about certain things which might lead the reader to a misconstruction. In either case, I would be happy to correct myself.

I am not writing this as a tourist guide to Sri Lanka although I won't mind if it serves such a cause. I will try to supply travel related information as well wherever I can plug it. If the reader has any specific question, I would try to answer, although LP/Tripadvisor would be a better place to start.

This entry is of more significance to me because my preconceived ideas about the country were challenged. Challenged is not the right word, 'destroyed' is. I am reminded of this quote by Mark Twain:

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime."

My original thought was to avoid any comparison with India - to represent Sri Lanka as a discrete entity but I later realized that it would be futile. Comparisons are bound to creep in unconsciously so let me bring them out. What is a man, if not his prejudices! Alternatively, they would contribute some juice to the otherwise boring posts.

As I gather my thoughts, I think it would be better to divide this into smaller posts because primarily I don't want to write a long meandering post and secondly because I think each topic deserves a separate post. I have also decided to write these posts on my Hindi blog as well. Since I am lousy in both the languages, the reader should not observe any appreciable differences.

The petulance of being Ravi Shastri

Talk about eating your hat - Ravi Shastri must have had at least a dozen! And those were not just pushed in, mind you, but being made to chew through it and then shoveled inside.

The latest being,

"I would have dropped Yuvraj Singh from my team in that last match, purely because we have seen in the last few matches Yuvraj Singh is still not quite 70% or 80%". 

And look what Yuvraj did - effected a direct hit and took two top order wickets including India's tormentor in the last match - Kamran Akmal.

Dear Ravi Shastri, clearly, sometimes you need to STFU!