Browsing by Author "Karunamuni, M."

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Sandesa Kavya Descriptions of Sites Destroyed by the Portuguese
(University of Kelaniya, 2005) de Silva, D.G.B.; Karunamuni, M.
The Portuguese encounter group consisting of over 40 multi-disciplinary researchers in a nearly two-year period study has been documenting the sites destroyed by the Portuguese in their cultural ("spiritual") and "temporal" conquest of Sri Lanka. The group has visited around 50 sites in different parts of the country from Jaffna in the North, to Devundara in the South, from Kotte in the West to Batticaloa in the East. Nearly thousand photographs of destroyed sites have been taken. A key element of the documentation included examination of Sinhalese, Tamil and Portuguese sources on the sites destroyed. Portuguese documents were a primary source for the acts of destruction of almost the entire key Buddhist, Hindu and Muslim centres of worship along the Western coast. In attempting to reconstruct how these centres, especially the Buddhist ones looked like in the pre-Portuguese period, the group took recourse to Sinhala literature specially, the Sandesa Kavyas which were written between the 14th to 16th centuries. The Sandesa Kavyas thus used included the Gira, Hansa, Kokila, Mayura, Parevi, Salalihini, Sevul and Tisara. In using this material, the poetic metaphor and ornamental descriptions were discounted while concrete descriptions such as "fivestorey building", "vihara to the North" etc were taken into account. 194 verses were found in the Sandesa literature describing the sites, specially the better-known ones. Sites described in the literature include Agbo Vehera (Weligama), Attanagalla Raja Maha Vihara, Barandi Kovila, Dalada Medura (Kotte), Delgamu Vehera, Devinuwara, Dorawaka Vehera, Galpatha, Galapatha, Ganananda Pirivena, Gangatilaka Vihara (Kalutara), Kadurugoda (Jaffna peninsula), Kali Kovila, Kelaniya, Keragala, Kotte city, Mapitigama Vihare, Nawagamuwa Devale, Paiyagala Vehera, Ratgam Vehera, Saman Devale Ratnapura, Totagamuwa,Veherakanda , Vidagama. The site descriptions before the destruction were correlated with Portuguese acts of destruction, for example in the vivid description on the sacking of Devinuwara. The descriptions in the two language realms, namely Sinhala and Portuguese were then correlated with the actual site situation today and the ruins existing. The paper summarizes this corpus of descriptive verse.
Searching for Traces of Protestantism among Buddhists in the Panadura Controversy Documents
(University of Kelaniya, 2005) Sugataratana himi, Kahapola; Karunamuni, M.
The struggle to regain, maintain and practice Buddhism was a continuing theme when Sri Lanka went under European colonial rule in the 16th century. This period witnessed, not only brutal repression, but also equally valiant attempts to regain valuable texts and accompanying practices from within and also outside Sri Lanka. The continuous historical thread which connects together all these struggles is to be seen as but one process. Recent western writers and Sri Lankans scholars located in the west, unaware of primary sources have superficially examined the resurgence that appeared in the late 19th century, and have falsely labeled it as Protestant Buddhism. It is alleged by them that those monks and laymen who rose to prominence in the new Buddhist movement adopted Protestant themes and rewrote Buddhism. The 19th century Buddhist resurgence begins with the British Christian grip loosening from around the early decades of the 19th century. Key makers of the resurgence were the emergence of the Paramadhammacetiya in Ratmalana (1841) and the re-establishing of key centres of Buddhist learning, Vidyodaya (1873) and Vidyalankara (1875) after the monastic institutions had been burnt down by the Portuguese in the 16th century debates between Buddhists and Christians culminating in the Panadura Controversy (1873). Some of the original documents of the Panadura Controversy still exist, as well as the oral histories. The present authors examine both documents as well as oral histories to identify areas where traces of Protestantism can be found. It is concluded that the total thrust, not only of the Panadura Controversy, but also of the other debates and the Buddhist resurgence in general were ideologically and organizationally against Protestantism. The theory of Protestant Buddhism is shown to be a complete perverse reading of the factual situation of putting facts on their heads.