Stories and Histories, Sri Lankan pasts and the dilemmas of narrative representation

Gananath Obeyesekere, Stories and Histories, Sri Lankan pasts and the dilemmas of narrative representation (Sarasavi Publishers, Nugegoda, 2019)

An introduction by Usvatte-aratchi

Professor (Emeritus, Princeton) Gananath Obeysekere, the pre-eminent anthropologist, has come out with that new book. It is fascinating. It is unlike anything that he had written earlier and quite unlike anything, I have read in anthropology, bearing in mind that I am no anthropologist. This is principally an exercise in hermeneutics, the interpretation of texts read comparatively. He made a case for this approach to anthropological research in the Preface to The Apotheosis of Captain Cook: ‘…there is no way one could become an ethnographer of a past that does not exist today. Much of the past is in fact enshrined in the texts of Cook’s last voyage and must therefore be imaginatively ‘re-ethnographised’. The texts must naturally be supplemented with whatever we can glean from texts collected by later Hawaiian scholars.’ This approach is different from semiotics which is the interpretation of symbols. You will recall an exercise in semiotics from Obeysekere’s longish essay written in 1970 with the title Religious Symbolism and Political Change in Sri Lanka. It is also very different from Clifford Geertz’ Interpretation of Cultures which is based on field work (in Indonesia). This book also differs from Obeysekere’a major work Pattini Cult that it is based on extensive field work, which was the main method in research in anthropology, beginning as early as Bronislaw Malinowski and perfected over years by Ruth Benedict, Evans-Prichard, Edmond Leach and our own Stanley Tambiah.

Obeysekere is blessed with many texts, some in print, others in manuscript on palm leaves. There is the Mahavansa continued after Mahanama by Dhammakitti and later by Sumangala. He gives much importance to kadaim pot (boundary books) and vitti pot (events books). Charles de Silva, an eminent Sinhala scholar in his introduction (1954) to Parakumba sirita wrote, ‘The entire mahavamsa itself can be considered a vitti pot of Sinhala kings’ (my translation). Rapiel Tennekone was of the opinion that the Mahavansa was based on pin pot (merit books) maintained by elite families and in temples, which records were read out to persons on death bed, to invite chariots to ride them to heaven. (As of now rich and powerful persons dare not read their pav pot which will open gates of hell to them, with a vehicle ready to take them there speedily, grace au yamarajjuruvo.) Then there are several Rajavaliya, one of which is identified as the Ur-text (authoritative text). Besides, we have pujavaliya, sadharmalamkaraya and saddharmaratnavali, all tika to suttas. Obeysekere in a few instances refers to two message poems (Mayura and Parevi). Conspicuously absent is Perakumba sirita, which itself has a rajavaliya. As he well shows us, there are many ‘stories and histories’. Those he uses to re-ethnographise a society on the move from the 11th century to the 16th. That abundance creates for an anthropologist ,‘dilemmas of narrative representation’. I will examine some of those dilemmas.

Make no mistake. This is an important contribution to anthropology and history. It firms up and expands the methods and techniques (methodology in American) used by anthropologists and in historiography, the writing of history. Obeysekere’s reading of texts teases out information (‘open up for critical inquiry corners of history that have remained closed’ or ‘open little known corners of history’) that was not available earlier and substitutes the complexity of situations that were taken as simple and straight forward (‘show the tentativeness of historical knowledge’). The most striking cases are those of the first Parakramabahu (Polonnaruva) and the Rajasingha 1 (Sithavaka).

He substantiates the claim that there are several histories, not a unique history. The demonstration of more than one history is most welcome in our midst where despite ample evidence to the contrary many people, even historians, hold on to the view that the Mahavamsa story is the one and only history of our country. We have seen already another version of the Mahavamsa story on television, maha sinhalaye vamsa kathava. Several movies have come out exhibiting their own versions of history. Those, it is almost certain would not be the last. We know that the story of Ramayana has numerous versions, some in India itself and others in Thailand (ramakiyen) and that treasure trove Java. Our own Vavuluva composed by Rapiel Tennekone has a version very different from that in the Kadamba ramayana. Obeysekere exploits these varied versions helped by stories from the period.

What has Obeyekere’s labours delivered to us? A great deal. I will cite only two, for lack of space and those may be idiosyncratic. The most significant to me is the flow of people during the centuries from the 11th to 16th from the land mass to the island, beginning with Cola and Magha invasions up to the times of Kotte kings, after which European adventurers and later governments were common in our land. After the Magha invasion, people from as far as East Kalinga came in, perhaps in waves. These immigrants included hetti (traders), andi (mendicants and sorcerers), karai (coastal fishermen, forebears of karava along the coast), fighting men ( malala and maravar (perhaps the origin of the word maravara) from Ramnad, adventurer merchants like Alakesvara, who eventually ruled in Raigama. This long steady stream of people from the land mass was not accompanied by a corresponding flow from the island. That asymmetry needs explanation. We saw that happened in America as the West was opening in the 19th century, when impoverished families in North-Western Europe, in large numbers, migrated there. (Thorstein Veblen’s, the great anthropologist and economist,was one such family.) Were living conditions in Lanka demonstrably higher than in the southern landmass and was this information carried by word of mouth to attract so many over so long a period? There does not seem to have been any concern with this feature in the documents that the author read. His readings show us the large commerce between elites as well as and ordinary people in the southern landmass and this society from during 12th to the 15th century. And those exchanges were with people of, what is now south India extending east to Kalinga, now known as Orissa (Oriya). People of the elite (pabhujana) in Lanka then seem to have spent time frequently in the company of equally prestigious families in Chola, Pandya and Kalinga reminding us of similar exchanges among royalty and aristocrats of England and Germany in more recent times. Several myths, including the Gajaba story, show processes of integrating them with the local populations. One hears them in the course of rituals both in the hill country and on the plains.

The second is about the events involving Dos Raja and Zheng He. This discussion shows Obeysekere’s method most clearly, when he uses several texts including Mahavamsa, several rajavaliyas, pujavaliya and others and then speculates. Who was dos raja? Obeysekere exploits the information in all the texts at his disposal including ‘non-ur’ rajavaliya and asserts ‘….it seems almost certain that Ariyacakkavattin was the ‘king’ who brought misfortune (dos) to the nation…’. Ariyacakkavattin was an adventurer from the Pandya desha, who took the tooth relic to his king in Pandya. Ariyacakkvattin is credited having killed Buvanekabahu I (of Yapahuva) and his brothers. What of Zheng He, the admiral from China? He is reported to have taken the king to China, which is commemorated in a small pillar inscription in Galle, written in Chinese, Tamil and Persian. In one of the Rajavali, there is an account of a sea journey between Sinhale and mahachina which is bizarre. Has mahachina anything to do with China and therefore were they talking about Zheng He? The inscription in Galle is material enough and the puzzle of Zheng He remains unsolved.

I shall pose two queries, that arose in my mind in the course of reading Obeysekere’s grand presentations. Each part of the Mahavamsa, written by a different person, living centuries apart, has its hero: Gamani Abhaya (duttha), Parakumba I and Parakumba VI. For Sumangala it is Rajasinha of Sithavaka. Mahavamsa as well as later histories are unanimous calling Gamani Abhaya (Gemunu aba) duttha (the wicked). How did he win this dreadful sobriquet? Gamani Abhaya, when a youth sent a gift to his father, which in effect called the father a coward. Bhikkhu who probably were aghast at this effront to the established order called Gamani Abhaya duttha. However, when compared to the horrible crimes by Parakramabahu I, Gothabhaya,

Kassapa, Leelavathi and Rajasinghe I (some well discussed in ‘Stories and Histories’). Gamani Abhaya, at worst, committed a youthful prank. Why continue with this gross injustice? The second is with regard to the names of kings: why did names common among kings of Anuradhapura disappear in Polonnaruva and further west and south? In Anuradhapura the Pali names of kings were Tissa (Kutakanna), Abhaya (Vattagamani abhaya) and Duttha Gamani Abhaya. From Polonnaruva kings were Bahu (Vijaybahu, Sinhala Vijayaba) until Rajasinghe I and Sinha, the lion comes on stage. Obeysekere thinks that bahu (strong arm) is resonating the old myth that Vijaya descended from a lion (das desa indra, vemi mama singha raja mrugendra). The Sinhala name of these bahu kings ends in ba e.g. Parakumba, Gajaba, Buvanekaba () and so on. You will recall that the Sinhala form of abhaya which was mahanama’s Pali version of aba in Anuradhapura (valagamba written in Pali as Vatta Gamani Abhaya). (In mayura sandesa ‘dina maha ba buvaneka ba raja pavara.’) What does ba in Sinhla and bahu in Pali signify? Remember the original names were in Sinhala and compilers of Mahavamsa put everything in sight into Pali. Sumangala dictionary has one equivalence abhaya and that is repeated in the Sinhala Sabdakosaya. Bahu in Sinhala is arm but it is necessary to inquire further whether bahu in Vijayabahu is not abhaya in another guise. Sotthisena is in Pali and the Sinhala equivalent must have been Sethsena: Sena the Benevolent (like Louis bien aime). We have often heard ‘sotthi te hotu sabbada’ and that is the relevant term. Perhaps, sotthiya in Sokari has the same significance.

One quibble about translations from Sinhala: dakum as relating to darshan. My understanding is that dakum is related to dakkhina (gift) as in ‘….esa bhagavato savaka sangho….pahuneyyo, dakkhineyyo’ (worthy of gifts). Both Sumangala and Sinhala Sabdakoshaya show that relationship. There are a few others but let them pass for the moment.

Book production

The responsibility of the author usually ends when he hands over the typescript to the publisher. Then begin the processes of producing the book, with the advice of the author. The design of the book and the cover of the book generally are the responsibility of the publisher. The critically important responsibility, from the point of view of the author, is proof reading. This is where most publishers in the country fail. Stories and Histories is no exception. Although none of the glitches stand between the meaning of the author and the understanding of reader, their presence on virtually every page is grossly annoying, especially in a book as good as this. I sorely missed an index. There is a gem of a page (323) in which Obeysekere laid down Sinhala kinship relations and I spent several hours to find it. This is a complex book and unless one reads it frivolously, it becomes necessary to go back and forth. How could one do that in a book of 450 pages that has no subject index? When a new edition comes out, we expect an index.

As valuable as this book is, it is not what you will take to the beach for the weekend. You need to read it with concentration, perhaps with a pencil in your hand to go back to something the author said on page 183, to connect it up with what he says on page 278. It is a valuable addition to the ethnography, to the history and historiography here and elsewhere and to methods and techniques (methodology) in anthropology. In this season of gift giving, this book will form a valuable addition to the basket. Do collect a copy for yourself.