Recordings of the island’s history as seen by the compilers of the Mahavamsa

‘A man loses contact with reality if he is not surrounded by his books’ – Francois Mitterand

By Usvatte-aratchi

I was delighted to read Haris’ (GPSH de Silva) new book ‘Sri Lanka, a brief history based on the Mahavamsa and …of the British Governors’. Living as we do, embalmed in fake news and entombed by the SARS-CoV-2, it is a relief to read anything so fresh. It brings one into contact with reality. The pleasure was compounded because Haris, with another, is the oldest friend I have. I cherish the first meeting with Haris on the corridor of Ramanathan Hall overlooking the river. I was walking to my room, lonely and forlorn, when a fellow freshman accosted me, ‘I am Haris. Who are you?’ (Well, I am not a historian but a plain Jane economist, no not even an economic historian!) I was the first entrant from my school to the university and here was a stranger, friendly. I was full of remorse when I failed to find Haris in Victoria Station, when both of us happened to be in London in 1963. I was away for most of my adult life but we saw each other every time I came back home. Because of our growing disabilities we have, in fact, not seen each for several months. His new book was a most welcome emissary.

It is a straight forward record of rulers in this land from the second century BCE (before the beginning of the Common Era). He was ‘dealing with the recordings of the island’s history, as seen by the compilers of the Mahavamsa…to jog the interest of the general reader as well as some students of history…’. It is brief, indeed, a mere 148 pages, including a bibliography. Among the entrants to our universities are many students who have never read any history after Grade 8 or 9, and that most unsatisfactorily. They will graduate with little familiarity with even an outline of the history of the island and even less of its literature. Without glorifying that which requires sober assessment, this little book may help to interest young people in what happened in the far past as well as in the near past of the people of this land. There is a lot of snake oil on this subject that is sold by interested parties. Here is the genuine stuff as is recorded in the old book of recipes, the Mahavamsa. It is small enough to fit in a back pocket of a person, as Haris was fond of doing when he was an undergraduate. It makes a nice gift to anyone interested in or might benefit from some familiarity with the history of this island.

It is not a history of the people but a list of rulers as presented in ‘chronological order’ but nor is Mahavamsa, as made clear by Haris. There are some brief notes about major events, especially those of a religious nature and those having to do with irrigation. Once reservoirs were built and irrigations system well established, life seems to have gone on with a certain degree of monotony. Mahavamsa does not tarry with even the momentous changes in religious beliefs and practices brought forth with the Chola invasions. However, with the introductory chapter in this book the ambitious reader can obtain some ideas about the life of the people. The author’s useful reference to epigraphical and archeological evidence helps out to imagine what may have been life in those days. From the account of British governors covering 41 pages, compared to the 100 pages for all rulers from the beginning, we learn of the innovations in transport, communications and other government activity. Perhaps, there is more written information on these besides what was given in the Mahavamsa. In the introduction, Haris has commented as follows: ‘Beyond religion, religious architecture, irrigation and literary works, evidence for (of?) dedicated scientific research on natural phenomena or any other worldly subjects is hard to come by…..Apart from the political history, it is seen, that, say unlike the ancient Greeks or ancient Chinese, the Sinhalese had not generally interested themselves in any scientific inquiries, concerning nature or natural history;..’. If one reads the literary works from amavatura to kusa jataka kavyaya, it is evident that the philosophy of knowledge (epistemology) that the Sinhala espoused, constricted themselves to works in the nature of atthakatha and tika on Buddhist teachings. The exceptions are the sandesa poems of the 15th century. (This is well written up in Rapiel Tennakone, ‘ape parani asun kavi’.)

At the end of the book, there is an appendix which gives the names of kings and their regnal years from Vijaya to Srivikrama Rajasingha and the Portuguese captains-General. The first list of names was published by Polwatte Buddhadattta (1959) in his Pali Mahavamso. The second list was written by K.M. de Silva in his A history of Sri Lanka(2005). Now we have a third in this book. It might be interesting to compare the lists but I cannot spare the time. My interest was aroused in an examination of the names of kings in the several periods of history, so divided by the principal capitals. When kings ruled from Anuradhapura there were three names for kings, that occurred frequently: Aba (abhaya), Tissa and Naga. Examples are panduka+abhaya, devanampiya tissa and chora+naga. When the capital moved to Polonnaruva, a new epithet appears frequently: Vijayabahu, parakramabahu, buvanekabahu. That tradition goes all the way down to Kotte. The bahu ending raises a question. Is it a different form for abhaya or aba? (Perakum+ba sirita has golu+aba for Gotabaya.) What does bhaya (fear, danger or risk) otherwise mean or signify? From Sitavaka began Rajasingha and the Sinhale monarchy ended in Maha nuvara with Sri Vickrema Rajasingha. What accounts for those changes and what do those changes signify? Haris did not set out asking those questions but they are not irrelevant.

After reading the book, three questions arose in my mind. The first, I raised in the previous paragraph. The third is in the last paragraph. The second is why did the Mahavamsa remain out of reach for the Sinhala reader for 14 centuries? In fact, it was read in French and English before it was read in Sinhala. The language of the Mahavamsa simply denied the expectation of its author ‘sujanappasada sangvegatthaya kathe mahavamso.- written for the enjoyment of the good people, as the sujana had no access to what he wrote. Haris has a short discussion on the language of the Mahavamsa but this is not one of the questions he raised; perhaps, it was not a subject fit for historical inquiry; I am not limited by that constraint. It is mentioned in the book itself, ‘Thera Mahanama, who compiled the earliest part from Cap 1 to Cap 37.52, was supposed to have used Sihalatthakatha Mahavamsa as the main source …’ Adikaram mentioned 19 sihalatthakatha that existed before Mahavamsa came to be written. Yet Mahavamsa was written in what Tennekone called bambabasa (the language of the brahmas) with which almost all people were unfamiliar. Did Mahanama want only bhikkhu and a few privileged laymen to have access to what he wrote? Then why were the motives of sihalatthakatha compilers, who came before him, different from those of Mahanama?

Perhaps, the answer is in the intervention of Buddhaghosha, who lived not far earlier than when Mahanama wrote the Mahavamsa. Malalasekera tells us that Buddhaghosha, collected all sihalatthakatha into a pile high as three fully grown elephants and set fire to them all. Buddhaghosha himself wrote his commentaries in Pali. Like all vanities, it was thought that writing in Pali exhibited one’s learning and writing in Sinhala was below the dignity of any man of learning. You can see that attitude among writers after Anuradhapura with the onset of Hindu and Samskritc cultural norms, well exhibited in Angkorvat and in Java. As I once pointed in this newspaper, it is remarkable that between the 5th century, up to which there had been Sinhala writings, Sinhala writing dried up until the 13th, excepting when in the 9th century Siyabaslakara, Dham piya atuva getapadaya and Sikha valanda (and vinisa) appeared, all of them samskrt and pali than Sinhala. A new Sinhala literature began at the end of the 13th century, when Lilavathie was queen, after a long eight centuries of drought.

The production of this book has been an amateur job by the publisher. There seems to have been no attention to book design, no copy editing and entirely inadequate proof reading. There are copy editing, grammar checks and spelling checks programmes which are common ware in computers now. No attempts seem to have been made to make use of those in preparing the typescript for print. I interrupted reading Rapiel Tennakone’s ape parani asun kavi running into 1175 pages, when I received Haris’ thin volume. Tennekone’s book has 350 pages of index, most taxing work. It was published in 1960 or so by M.D. Gunasena . The entire massive volume must have ben written by hand and proof-read several times over. I had read up to page 497 and had not found one error. There is responsible publishing. An author writes a book with labour and by the time he reads the typescript for the fifth time, there are no mistakes in it at all. However, when the fresh smelling copies come home, you feel it would have been better that you had not written. I am not trying to vent my spleen on this publisher but this malady is of epidemic proportions and the best-known publishers in the country publish fine authors with error filled volumes. I reviewed in these pages a few months ago a large volume and was furious that the publishers got away with scores of errors. It is time that our publishers took a lesson or two from those that came before them and from publishers overseas.