Addressing a meeting in Jaffna,
the leader of the Liberation Panthers, Thirumavalavan narrated
an incident worthy of careful observation in terms of the
religio-cultural traditions of Sri Lanka. He narrated how one of his
party members expressed surprise over the fact that he
(Thirumavalavan) could be critical of President Chandrika
Kumaratunga. His surprise was how could a Bauddha Sahothari (Bauddha
Soyuri) be so bad. The politics behind this episode apart, it amply
reveals the type of estimation dedicated Tamil workers from the
depressed communities of Tamil Nadu have towards Buddhism. In their
opinion Buddhism is an egalitarian religion freeing people from
their social shackles.
Buddhism as is known very well has a long history in Tamil Nadu. It
has had indelible impact on the intellectual development and
traditions of Tamil Nadu. Buddhism has contributed greatly to
secular Tamil culture. Equally important is the Tamil contribution
to Buddhist thought and literature.
Manimekalai, a Tamil Buddhist epic by the poet Saattanar (circa
sixth century A. D) reveals the kind of intellectual discourses
which Buddhism generated in Tamil Nadu.Even under the Pallava and
Chola dynasties whose reigns are identified with Hindu
assertiveness, Buddhism along with Jainism were very powerful
intellectual forces.
It is a fact seldom highlighted that two landmarks in Tamil grammar
– Veerasoliyam and
Nannool- were written by a Buddhist (Buddhamithra) and a Jain
(Pavanadhi) even in the heyday of the Chola empire which had brought
in such vast changes in the social life of Tamil Nadu, including its
language.
Incidentally, it is well known that Veerasoliyam served as a model
for the 13th century Sinhala grammatical work Sidat Sangharawa.
What is perhaps more revealing of the extent to which Buddhism as a
philosophy had established itself in Tamil Nadu. It is brought out
very well in a theoretical work on Saiva Siddhantha – Sivagnana
Siddhiyar- a work of about 13th century. The work refutes four
schools of Buddhism, one of which is Sautantrika school of Buddhism.
I have heard eminent Buddhist scholars stating that in spite of its
repudiative tone this is the almost the only text available for
reconstructing Sautantrika thought.
The increasing Sanskritisation in Tamil Nadu, discernible from the
late Chola period, established itself firmly under the authority of
the Vijayanagara Emperors and their Nayaks (governors). In fact
these Telugu rulers had enough political reasons to accentuate the
Sanskritisation process in Tamil Nadu. It may be said that at the
more articulate level of society, the Buddhist influence were
becoming thinner and thinner.
When Tamil Nadu came under British rule in the early nineteenth
century, there began a very slow process of democratising or
bringing into focus those sections of Hindu Tamil society, which
were hitherto repressed. The beginnings of the Indian independence
movement also encouraged this process.
Those caste groups, which came into close contact with British
officialdom, especially as domestic labour and soldiery, became
aware of intellectual developments in the west. This led to a sense
of modernity spreading among these caste groups. And as they,
becoming more and more exposed to western influences, they began to
realise both the social institutions and ideologies that restrained
them socially and economically.
Thus there began a movement against Brahminism and Hindu hierarchy.
It was during this time that the Indian Theosophical Society was
establishing itself in the then Madras. The significance of this
movement in modern Indian renaissance is too well known to be
recounted here. There were two discernible trends in the Indian
Theosophical movement. One was symbolised by Annie Besant who became
an ardent admirer of Hindu traditions and the other was Col.
Henry Steele Olcott who was keen on rediscovering Buddhism. Olcott
established contact with the emerging movement for social
emancipation in south India. He was a key figure in the Buddhist
Theosophical society in Sri Lanka. Published and unpublished records
from the Theosophical Society in Adaiyar, Madras show that Olcott
played a major role in fighting against the non egalitarian trends
and casteism in Hinduism. He seems to be responsible for introducing
the thoughts of the American rationalist philosopher Robert
Ingersoll to the activists of the movements for social emancipation
in Tamil Nadu.
It was in this historical setting that one energetic youth from the
Pariah caste called Kaattavarayan got exposed to the anti-Brahminic,
anti-casteist traditions of Tamil Nadu through his teacher Pandit
Ayothidas. The young Kaattavarayan came to know of Buddha and his
teaching through this teacher. Kaattavarayan took on the name of his
teacher when he launched his public life. This
Ayothidas
(1845-1914) was responsible for starting a movement for converting
Tamils to Buddhism.
That the young Ayothidas discovered Buddhism from his teacher in
Coimbatore (Kongu Nadu), in the northwestern parts of Tamil Nadu
gives us reasons to believe that Buddhist traditions were alive in
the Tamil country well into the 19th century. Ayothidas established
contact with Col. Olcott when he (Ayothidas) began his movement for
converting Tamils to Buddhism. Ayothidas was becoming increasingly
active in the movement for the advancement of the lower caste groups
in Tamil Nadu. He started a paper called Oru Paise Thamilan (One
Penny Tamil) in 1894. His writings attracted the attention of the
Tamil scholars of the day. The activities and writings of Ayothidas
are taken as the beginning of the rationalist movement of Tamil
Nadu. Until recently it was generally believed that the rationalist
movement started with
E. V Ramasamy Naicker (Periyar), the founder of the Self Respect
Movement.
The efforts of Ayothidas to get official recognition for his
Buddhist activities and ceremonial blessings for his own conversion
to Buddhist were realised when Col. Olcott brought him to Colombo in
1898. They first visited the chief incumbent of the Vidhyodhaya
Pirivena, Ven. Rahula Thero. Thereafter, Ayothidas was taken to the
Vidyalankara Pirivena and finally to Kandy for an audience with the
Malwatte Nayaka Thero, the chief prelate of the highest order of
Buddhism in Sri Lanka. Here Ayothidas and his friends were
officially received into the Buddhist fold i.e. their conversion to
Buddhism received official sanction from the Malwatte chapter.
Newspaper reports of Ayothidas’s conversion claim it as the official
Buddhist recognition of his movement for social justice. Historians
who have worked on this subject use the term Tamil Buddhism to refer
the Ayothidas’s movement. What is historically important is that
Ayothidas’s movement for Tamil Buddhism precedes the much-publicised
activities of Dr. B. R Ambedkar, the chief architect of the Indian
Constitution. As one belonging to the underprivileged Mahar caste of
Maharashtra, Dr. Ambedkar wanted downtrodden Indian castes to become
Buddhists. He was not happy with Gandhi’s Harijan concept – Hari’s
(God’s) Children – that sounded too patronising. Buddhism in the
opinion of both Ayothidas and Ambedkar ensured social equality and
assured them against Brahmin supremacy. The appeal to Buddhism was
taken over by the rationalist movement and its offshoot, the
Dravidian movement. Modern Tamil Nadu’s concept of Buddhism is
synonymous with social equality. Thus it has gained great acceptance
among the socially downtrodden Tamils. The Dalit movement in Tamil
Nadu considers every Buddhist as their true friend in its fight
against social inequalities.
It is a pity that the egalitarian aspect of Buddhism highly
treasured by the Buddhist revivalist movements of Tamil Nadu and
later of Maharashtra took no root in Sri Lanka. The answer to this
lies in the fact that official Sri Lankan Buddhism is Sinhala
Buddhism which focuses on its Sinhalaness and elevates it as its
distinguishing characteristic, little realising that this
Sinhalaness inevitably inveigled cast norms into the Sangha. These
caste norms have no doubt come from Hinduism. But what is important
and irrefutable is that this caste system with its own specificities
is as much Sinhala as it is Hindu. For a student of Buddhism,
especially of the way it was rediscovered in modern India, it is a
stark fact that the Catholicity (universality and liberality) of
Buddhism has been forgotten in Sri Lanka’s Buddhist revival.
One cannot hide the pain of mind a student of Tamil literature is
bound to experience in the manner Buddhism was presented to the
average Tamil people in Jaffna and Batticaloa. The Buddhist
establishments in the Tamil towns never wanted to present Buddhism
in Tamil to the Tamil people, a feature seen at least to some extent
in the activities of the Maha Bodhi society of Madras. This society
has published Tamil books on Buddhism. The society’s monograph
Puththar Sarithtiram (History Buddha) is a brilliant introduction in
Tamil to Lord Buddha and his teachings. I wonder whether any such
publications have come out in Sri Lanka. On the contrary, the
Buddhist temple and the Buddhist priest have been seen as
Sinhalaising forces, very much like the Christian missionaries of
the Portuguese and Dutch periods who were also viewed as part of
state hegemony.
Lord Buddha would never have even thought of such a situation for he
took his teachings to the people in their own languages.
We seek refuge in the Enlightened One |
