It’s time we revived the ancient fraternal ties between Lanka and South India
Two very interesting features in your paper (Sunday Times PLUS, March 11, 2012) refer to visits to South India. One story was about the Samadibuddha statue sponsored by two eminent Sri Lankans, and the other was about the last King of Kandy, Sri Wickrama Rajasinghe. The first referred to a visit to Chennai to meet the master sculptors, and the other referred to a visit to Vellore to see the tomb of Sri Wickrema Rajasinghe, the last King of Kandy.
All this brings to mind the visits I made some years ago to Vellore to visit the tomb, and the Vellore museum, which displayed a local artist’s representation of the late King and his Queen.
Having seen the original paintings at the Queen’s Hotel in Kandy and the Colombo Museum, I promised the curator of the Vellore museum to send an authentic copy of the paintings of the King and Queen. To my great dismay, I found out, after writing to the Colombo Museum, that no such paintings were available.
I was referring to an original painting by William Daniell, RA, which was at the Colombo Museum (see H. W. Codrington’s Short History of Ceylon). The painting of the Queen which graced the Queen’s Hotel in Kandy had mysteriously disappeared.
My other visit was to Kanchipuram (Kanchi), the ancient capital of the Pallava Kings, with whom Lanka had close ties. Kanchipuram is now famous for its silk sarees. It is said that the Buddha visited Kanchi and that Emperor Asoka built a stupa there to commemorate the visit.
The city of Kanchi was at this time Buddhist, as described by Hiuen Tsang.
Anyone writing about Buddhism in the Tamil land should refer to two great ancient classics in the Tamil language: Silappadikaram and Manimekalai. These are Tamil language GCE O/level texts in Sri Lanka. The first was written by a Jain ascetic, Ilango Adigal, and the other by a Buddhist poet, Sittalai Sattanar.
The great Sinhala poet Kumaradasa, author of the Janakiharana, lived in Kanchi and wrote his Maha Kavya there. Other greats who lived in Kanchi were Buddhagosa, Dinnaga Bodhidharma, Dharmapala, Vajirabodhi, and Anuruddha. All had close connections with Lanka.
The four kings of the Malabar dynasty (who succeeded the last Sinhala King, Narendra Sinha, and whose queen was from Malabar), though not born Buddhists, gave a huge boost to Buddhism, with help from Myanmar and Siam (Thailand).
Kirti Sri, the greatest of them, was a zealous Buddhist and a scholar. He was responsible for setting up the Siam Nikaya, with the assistance of the then Sangaraja Welivita Sri Saranakara. This king had the Mahavamsa chronicle continued from Parakramabahu to his own time.
It is said that Sri Wickrama Rajasinghe tried to reduce the power and privileges of the chiefs and thus reduce the burden on the people. The beautiful Kandy Lake is attributed to him. The name Malabar Street has been changed. The great Kirti Sri has been forgotten by an ungrateful population. A revival of the ancient fraternal ties between Lanka and South India is long overdue.
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