Opinion

A singular modern Lankan mentor – Part III

Published

11 months ago

2025/02/4

Sahan Weerasooriya

Prof. Obeyesekere (L) at a ritualistic event

by Laleen Jayamanne and Namika Raby

Gananath Obeysekere: In search of Buddhist conscience
(Baudha Hurdasakshiya Soya)

(Part II of this article appeared in The Island on Monday – 03)

Tissa Ranasinghe’s and Gananath’s Kannagi

Gananath’s Pattini book has a mysterious blue-black cover with an icon of Kannagi in Bronze sculpted by Lanka’s foremost Modernist sculptor Tissa Ranasinghe, commissioned by Gananath. What Appadurai termed Lanka’s links with ‘Indic culture’ is encapsulated in this image of the heroic figure Kannagi from the Tamil epic, striking a gesture of mourning for her husband Kovalan, unjustly killed by the king of Madurai. She kneels with her arms held raised around her head in the familiar triangular formation suggestive of the aniconic representation of the Yoni (an emblematic civilisational gesture of great iconic strength and power, in the Bronze lineage of India, which stretches back to the little bronze figurine of The Dancing Girl of Monhenjodaro itself), even as she laments the injustice. And those of us who know the legend also see that her left breast is missing. Kannagi, it is told, tore her breast and hurled it at the city of Madurai, setting it on fire with her righteous anger! Together, Gananath and Tissa have presented Kannagi in a most generative posture and gesture for the cover of the book on the Sinhala Pattini cult, the only Mother goddess of the Sinhala folk, borrowed from the Tamil Epic, to assuage and heal Sinhala male sexual anxieties and group trauma. This marvelous collaboration between Lanka’s celebrated Modernist Sculptor and Anthropologist was a multivalent, therapeutic intervention into Lanka’s cyclical interethnic violence. The book was published in 1984, one year after the state sponsored pogram against Tamils in July ‘83. Tissa’s modernist Kannagi demonstrates how an archaic ‘Maternal Archetype’ can be creatively mobilised by an artist, to express contemporary predicaments without diluting her orginal power and affective vitality magnified by the use of bronze, a resonant civilisational material.

Pattini is the Sinhala Buddhist incarnation of the Tamil heroic Kannagi and as far as I can tell she appears not to have the iconographic attributes of heroic rage and righteous anger which Kannagi embodies in the Tamil Epic. Kannagi is the step mother of Manimekalai who became a Buddhist nun, according to legend. Is it the case that Pattini is without progeny and so, as a Mother Goddess, rather like the West Asian mother Goddesses who were also virgins? As a girl, my mother and I were devoted to rituals of Mother Mary (mother of Jesus), also known as the Virgin-Mary from, let’s not forget, West Asia (in historic Palestine).

Professor Sunil Ariyaratne’s 2016 film Pattini, warrants a passing comment or two in this context as an example of the institutional consolidation of Neo-Liberal capitalist extraction and commodification of the residual vitality and power of the perennial syncretic Folk traditions of Lanka. It is a neo-traditionalist extravaganza in the genre of nostalgic revival of ‘the Sinhala-Buddhist Folk Heritage of Lanka’ which flourished recently with much fanfare and state patronage as a ‘Rajapaksha genre’. The film deals with the Kannagi legend just so as to reduce it to reinforcing the Sinhala-Buddhist ideology of purity and virginity for women through the exemplary tale of ‘the pure wife’ Kannagi and her step-daughter Manimekala, who becomes a Tamil Buddhist. Her dearest wish is to be reborn as a male so that she can indeed aspire to become a Buddha. The emphasis is on the preservation of virginity (Pathiwatha), and the enthroning of male sexuality as the route to attaining Buddhahood. The mythic epic figure of Kannagi who in her rage enacts heroic justice in the Tamil epic is converted into a parabolic emblem of virginal purity.

A Humanist Education

Gananath’s education is a strand very comprehensively covered in the film, a source of his immense openness to the world of ideas and refusal to accept them on authority without critical evaluation. The film opens at Gananath’s home in Kandy which he shares with Professor Ranjini Obeysekere who appears with her vibrant intellect and grace and ends there too. The couple are shown warmly welcoming the film crew to their house as they have done over their long engagement with numerous students, as they did with me both in Kandy and the US when I was tangled up and blue. It is worth remembering here that Ranjini is the Editor in Chief of the magnificent multi-volume translation project of the Jataka Tales into English, published just last year. It is only now that I can see how deeply Ranjini and Gananath’s scholarship is in conversation with each other.

The account of Ranjini and Gananath’s meeting at Peradeniya University while studying English Literature with Professor E.F.C. Ludowyk is one of the highlights of the film for me. Ranjini acted in the plays directed by Ludowyck and they studied English Literature at honours level together. Interestingly, though Gananath followed the Dram Soc activities on campus, he didn’t participate in any of them, his interest being elsewhere. He says, whenever he could he got onto a bus or train and travelled to distant villages to talk to villagers and monks and tape their songs (kavi). Gananath says that Ludowyck was the best teacher he has ever met and that he was responsible for directing him at every key juncture of his undergraduate life and soon after when making the unusual choice of going to a US graduate school, refusing a scholarship to Cambridge because of colonial history. Gananath’s brilliant textual analysis and exegesis of texts in Sinhala of myths and legends, especially the complex corpus of the Gajabahu legend, owes a great deal to the textual training he received from Ludowyck in ‘Practical Criticism’. We are all beneficiaries of this tradition of Literary Criticism which was part of the training we received in English Lit in old Ceylon and now continued by scholars such as Professor of English, Sumathy Sivamohan and others. Ranjini tells us that it was Ludowyck who collected Rs 10,000 from ten of his friends and handed it to Gananath to go travel the country and do what he wished soon after he graduated with English Honours. All he was asked to do was to write and thank his benefactors. So, it’s this tradition of mentorship and duty of care that Gananath and Ranjini have practiced with their own students during their long working life at American Universities.

A Counter Archive of a People’s Literature, Painting and Ritual

Though I was familiar with some of Gananath’s writing and studied a couple for the film I made, there is a major topic of his research which I didn’t know anything about and as such this film has provided an important learning experience for me. In drawing from the local non-canonical texts preserved in Temples, libraries and archives, which are written, in Sinhala by the folk and as such are anonymous, not by scholar monks in Pali, the language of high learning, Gananath has been able to piece together stories, legends of migrations from India, Kerala and Tamil Nadu and the ways in which some of these waves of migrants have been incorporated into the folk Buddhist body politic and culture. The gist of which is the seemingly heretical idea (an affront to Sinhala exceptionalism and their sense of manifest destiny as ‘pure Ariya’ Sinhala-Buddhists claiming to be the only real Lankans), that at one time, all people who call themselves Sinhala in Lanka did come from India and were indigenised through various practices and this happened in waves of migration over long periods of time. This section draws from the folk archive of poetry, ritual and Temple murals and legends such as the complex Gajabahu Myth, that bear witness to these processes of migration and acculturation, to make the case for the existence of robust muti-ethnic, diverse communities dotting the island. The legendary folk tales and rituals were, he says, imaginative, fictionalised, poetic expressions of folk memory of these migratory events, not ‘false’ accounts.

Here I want to cite a longish relevant passage from Professor Patrick Olivelle’s highly acclaimed book, Ashoka: Portrait of a Philosopher King. Ramchandra Guha, the editor of the series called ‘Indian Lives‘ of which this is the first, says of the Lankan Olivelle that, ‘he is one of the greatest living scholars of Ancient India’. Here’s Olivelle’s argument, on the familiar opposition between History and Legend, which supports Gananath’s theoretical move with practical consequences for how we understand ourselves as Lankans.

“In a seminal remark, the historian Robert Lingat notes: ‘There are two Ashokas—the historical Ashoka whom we know through his inscriptions, and the legendary Ashoka, who is known to us through texts of diverse origin, Pali, Sanskrit, Chinese and Tibetan. Although essentially correct, there are two problems with Lingat’s assessment.

First it is simplistic to contrast the ‘historical with the legendary’. The portrait of Ashoka I have constructed in this book is based on Ashokan inscriptions and artefacts, yet it contains a heavy dose of interpretation, translation, imagination, narrative, perhaps bias… The ‘legendery’ is not simply false and to be dismissed; it is the reimagination of the past to serve present needs, something inherently human. These narratives were meaningful and important to the persons and communities that constructed them. Their purpose was not to do history in the modern sense of the term, but to do something much more significant to them in their own time.

….There are actually not two but several Ashokas, including modern ones”.

Following this argument, we Lankans who try to practice ‘Loving-Kindness’ must be thankful that Gananath has highlighted for us at least two Dutthagaminies, in his timely essay, Dutthagamini and the Buddhist Conscience, written in the wake of the carnage of the ‘July ‘83’ state sponsored pogrom against the Tamil people of Lanka. There is the familiar Dutthagamini, taught to us in school, as a Sinhala-Buddhist, Tamil-hating ethno-nationalist, constructed from the Mahavamsa narrative taken as incontrovertible historical fact. On the other hand, Gananath presents evidence, from the Dambulla temple paintings, for a humanist Dutthagamini, who like Ashoka himself, was contrite about the mass slaughter he conducted and his killing of Elara the Tamil king.

The film shows us how Gananath makes a radical scholarly move in the late stages of his life by researching the indigenous folk of Lanka, the Veddhas. He argues against the deep-seated idea, promulgated by the ethno-nationalist Sinhala-Buddhist ideologues, that there is an ancient historical enmity between the Sinhala and Tamil folk of Lanka going back to the days of the kings, prior to colonialism. Gananath analyses the myth of origin of the Sinhala folk as represented in temple murals that show Vijaya’s arrival in Lanka from India and his marriage with the indigenous woman Kuveni. The Veddhas are the descendants, he says, of Kuveni and her children by Vijaya and are the ‘other’ or outsider, so to speak, to the Sinhala.

Through his ethnographic work on the powerful Vadi procession (perahera) in Mahiyanganaya, Gananath is able to show the ritual means through which they are incorporated into the Sinhala community. The ethnographic film, demonstrating this robust festive ritual event of staging cultural difference and incorporation, supports Gananath’s argument that the Veddas have been the true ‘outsiders’ of the Buddhist polity (in dress, culinary habits, religion), and despite that, the Buddhist culture had ritual mechanisms of incorporation of the outsider, without resorting to slaughter, while also acknowledging and respecting the awesome power of the Veddas. This section should be shown to school kids, I think, because of its liveliness and pedagogic value. Gananath acknowledges the fine scholarship of Paul E. Peiris on the Veddas and shows the colonial hostility and violence towards these indigenous folk of Lanka. Gananath’s ‘Cook Book’, also relevant to Australia’s colonial history, would have provided a global perspective on colonisation of indigenous peoples and the violent means used in casting them as ‘uncivilised primitives’, which in turn would have prepared him well to write the book on, the Veddas, Creation of the Hunter, in 2022.

What to Do, Napuru Kaleta? (In Wicked Times)

It seems to me that young scholars and artists might be able to generate a new thought or two by reading Gananath’s essays and books in relation to Ananda Coomaraswamy’s Mediaeval Sinhalaese Art (Campden: Gloucestershire, 1908) and Olivelle’s book on Ashoka. In this way, the monodisciplinary compartmentalisation of knowledge, ideas, can be disturbed so as to gain aesthetic nourishment to create, with what’s left, after the ravages of Neoliberal cultural nationalism’s cognitive extraction of our brains. All three distinguished, visionary Lankan scholars were writing about times when material culture and the ‘Intangible Heritage’ (A UNESCO Platform for their preservation) of Lanka and India were/are being destroyed from within, extinguished.

Some ‘transversal’ or lateral ways of understanding and connecting material practices/stuff and immaterial ideas are called for now, I believe, and these three Lankan scholars have shown us many ways in which this can be done. Let me clinch my argument by citing the full title of Coomaraswamy’s indispensable book which took 60 years to be translated into Sinhala. Professor Sarath Chandrajeewa (who also taught ‘mati-weda’) gave me this information for which I am most thankful. I read it in English as an undergraduate, quite by chance. Here’s the extended title:

“Being a Monograph on Mediaeval Sinhalese Arts and Crafts, Mainly as Surviving in the 18^th Century with an Account of the Structure of Society and the Status of the Craftsman.”

Gananath might well have known through Ludowyk that the first edition of this book was hand printed in England by Coomaraswamy himself over a period of 15 months on the same printing press (which he purchased), as the one in which the first edition of the complete works of the Mediaeval English poet Chaucer was printed by William Morris, one of leaders of the ‘Arts and Craft Movement’. There is a wonderful story I heard from a native informant of California, of Gananath’s freshman lecture at the University of California in San Diego, on Pilgrimages. On hearing Gananath recite an entire section from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales ‘by heart,’ the students gave him a standing ovation!

Felix Guattari’s Three Ecologies, (namely Social Ecology, Mental Ecology, Environmental Ecology), is another a book worth reading (now freely downloadable), alongside the others as he was a radical psychotherapist trained in psychoanalysis by Lacan, and a Left Activist in France who also collaborated with the philosopher Gilles Deleuze on Anti–Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (1968), which was a best seller. He also worked at a humane, innovative mental health institution which was part of the radical anti-psychiatry movement of the 60s and was a wild thinker who reminds me of Gananath and also had the requisite discipline, like him, to write books that crossed generations. He died all too soon, but Gananath will turn 95 on the second of February 2025.

Finally, my gratitude to the producers of this film, the Kathika Collective whose independent spirit, deep research, dedication, and not least, the love of cinema has led to the production of this film over a long period of time, which included the hiatus of the COVID pandemic. While Dimuthu is credited as researcher, script writer and director and Chathura Madhusanka with editing and camera, a great many well wishes (acknowledged in the credits), contributed freely to this film which has not received any external funding. The spirit of education that drove this film is a truly beautiful tribute to Gananath and Ranjini Obeysekere, our indispensable mentors, both.

Yahonis Pattini Kapumahattya’s haunting voice emanating from a deep folk history (which Gananath much admired and we are privileged to hear), accompanies the long credit list.

The film is dedicated:

“To all rural folk who in their diverse ways enriched the peasant Buddhist tradition and found Buddha in that”. (Concluded)

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Opinion

A wise Christmas

Published

9 hours ago

2025/12/24

Sahan Weerasooriya

Important events in the Christian calendar are to be regurlarly reviewed if they are to impact on the lives of people and communities. This is certainly true of Christmas.

Community integrity

Years ago a modest rural community did exactly this, urging a pre-Christmas probe of the events around Jesus’ birth. From the outset, the wisemen aroused curiosity. Who were these visitors? Were they Jews? No. were they Christians? Of course not. As they probed the text, the representative character of those around the baby, became starkly clear. Apart from family, the local shepherds and the stabled animals, the only others present that first Christmas, were sages from distant religious cultures.

With time, the celebration of Christmas saw a sharp reversal. The church claimed exclusive ownership of an inclusive gift and deftly excluded ‘outsiders’ from full participation.

But the Biblical version of the ‘wise outsiders’ remained. It affirmed that the birth of Jesus inspired the wise to initiate a meeting space for diverse religious cultures, notwithstanding the long and ardous journey such initiatives entail. Far from exclusion, Jesus’ birth narratives, announced the real presence of the ‘outsider’ when the ‘Word became Flesh’.

The wise recognise the gift of life as an invitation to integrate sincere explanations of life; true religion. Religion gone bad, stalls these values and distorts history.

There is more to the visit of these sages.

Empire- When Jesus was born, Palestine was forcefully occcupied by the Roman empire. Then as now, empire did not take kindly to other persons or forces that promised dignity and well being. So, when rumours of a coming Kingdom of truth, justice and peace, associated with the new born baby reached the local empire agent, a self appointed king; he had to deliver. Information on the wherabouts of the baby would be diplomatically gleaned from the visiting sages.

But the sages did not only read the stars. They also read the signs of the times. Unlike the local religious authorities who cultivated dubious relations with a brutal regime hated by the people, the wise outsiders by-pass the waiting king.

The boycott of empire; refusal to co-operate with those who take what it wills, eliminate those it dislikes and dare those bullied to retaliate, is characteristic of the wise.

Gifts of the earth

A largely unanswered question has to do with the gifts offered by the wise. What happened to these gifts of the earth? Silent records allow context and reason to speak.

News of impending threats to the most vulnerable in the family received the urgent attention of his anxious parent-carers. Then as it is now, chances of survival under oppressive regimes, lay beyond borders. As if by anticipation, resources for the journey for asylum in neighbouring Egypt, had been provided by the wise. The parent-carers quietly out smart empire and save the saviour to be.

Wise carers consider the gifts of the earth as resources for life; its protection and nourishment. But, when plundered and hoarded, resources for all, become ‘wealth’ for a few; a condition that attempts to own the seas and the stars.

Wise choices

A wise christmas requires that the sages be brought into the centre of the discourse. This is how it was meant to be. These visitors did not turn up by chance. They were sent by the wisdom of the ages to highlight wise choices.

At the centre, the sages facilitate a preview of the prophetic wisdom of the man the baby becomes.The choice to appropriate this prophetic wisdom has ever since summed up Christmas for those unable to remain neutral when neighbour and nature are violated.

Wise carers

The wisdom of the sages also throws light on the life of our nation, hard pressed by the dual crises of debt repayment and post cyclonic reconstruction. In such unrelenting circumstances, those in civil governance take on an additional role as national carers.

The most humane priority of the national carer is to ensure the protection and dignity of the most vulnerable among us, immersed in crisis before the crises. Better opportunities, monitored and sustained through conversations are to gradually enhance the humanity of these equal citizens.

Nations in economic crises are nevertheless compelled to turn to global organisations like the IMF for direction and reconstruction. Since most who have been there, seldom stand on their own feet, wise national carers may not approach the negotiating table, uncritically. The suspicion, that such organisations eventually ‘grow’ ailing nations into feeder forces for empire economics, is not unfounded.

The recent cyclone gave us a nasty taste of these realities. Repeatedly declared a natural disaster, this is not the whole truth. Empire economics which indiscriminately vandalise our earth, had already set the stage for the ravage of our land and the loss of loved ones and possessions. As always, those affected first and most, were the least among us.

Unless we learn to manouvre our dealings for recovery wisely; mindful of our responsibilities by those relegated to the margins as well as the relentles violence and greed of empire, we are likely to end up drafted collaborators of the relentless havoc against neighbour and nature.

If on the other hand the recent and previous disasters are properly assessed by competent persons, reconstruction will be seen as yet another opportunity for stabilising content and integrated life styles for all Lankans, in some harmony with what is left of our dangerously threatened eco-system. We might then even stand up to empire and its wily agents, present everywhere. Who knows?

With peace and blessings to all!

Bishop Duleep de Chickera

Opinion

Ranwala crash: Govt. lays bare its true face

Published

2 days ago

2025/12/22

Thilina Walpola

The NPP government is apparently sinking into a pit dug by the one of its members, ‘Dr’ Asoka Ranwala; perhaps a golden pit (Ran Wala) staying true to his name! Some may accuse me of being unpatriotic by criticising a government facing the uphill task of rebuilding the country after an unprecedented catastrophe. Whilst respecting their sentiment, I cannot help but point out that it is the totally unwarranted actions of the government that is earning much warranted criticism, as well stated in the editorial “Smell of Power” (The Island, 15 December). Cartoonist Jeffrey, in his brilliance, has gone a step further by depicting Asoka Ranwala as a giant tsunami wave rushing to engulf the tiny NPP house in the shore, AKD is trying to protect. (The Island, 18 December).

The fact that Asoka Ranwala is very important to the JVP, for whatever reason, became evident when he was elected the Speaker of Parliament despite his lack of any parliamentary experience. When questions were raised about his doctorate in Parliament, Ranwala fiercely defended his position, ably supported by fellow MPs. When the Opposition kept on piling pressure, producing evidence to the contrary, Ranwala stepped aside, claiming that he had misplaced the certificate but would stage a comeback, once found. A year has passed and he is yet to procure a copy of the certificate, or even a confirmatory letter from the Japanese university!

The fact that AKD did not ask Ranwala to give up his parliamentary seat, a decision he may well be regretting now following recent events, shows that either AKD is not a strong leader who can be trusted to translate his words to action or that Ranwala is too important to be got rid of. In fact, AKD should have put his foot down, as it was revealed that Ranwala was a hypocrite, even if not a liar. Ranwala led the campaign to dismantle the private medical school set up by Dr Neville Fernando, which was earning foreign exchange for the country by recruiting foreign students, in addition to saving the outflow of funds for educating Sri Lankan medical graduates abroad. He headed the organisation of parents of state medical students, claiming that they would be adversely affected, and some of the photographs of the protests he led refer to him as Professor Ranwala! Whilst leading the battle against private medical education, Ranwala claims to have obtained his PhD from a private university in Japan. Is this not the height of hypocrisy?

The recent road traffic accident he was involved in would have been inconsequential had Ranwala been decent enough to leave his parliamentary seat or, at least, being humble enough to offer an apology for his exaggerated academic qualifications. After all, he is not the only person to have been caught in the act of embellishing a CV. As far as the road traffic accident is concerned, too, it may not be his entire responsibility. Considering the chaotic traffic, in and around Colombo, coupled with awful driving standards dictated by lack of patience and consideration, it is a surprise that more accidents do not happen in Sri Lanka. Following the accident, may be to exonerate from the first count, a campaign was launched by NPP supporters stating that a man should be judged on his achievements, not qualifications, further implying that he does not have the certificate because he got it in a different name!

What went wrong was not the accident, but the way it was handled. Onlookers claim that Ranwala was smelling of alcohol but there is no proof yet. He could have admitted it even if he had taken any alcohol, which many do and continue to drive in Sri Lanka. After all, the Secretary to the Ministry overseeing the Police was able to get the charge dropped after causing multiple accidents while driving under the influence of liquor! He, with another former police officer, sensing the way the wind was blowing formed a retired police collective to support the NPP and were adequately rewarded by being given top jobs, despite a cloud hanging over them of neglect of duty during the Easter Sunday attacks. This naïve political act brought the integrity of the police into question. The way the police behaved after Ranwala’s accident confirmed the fears in the minds of right-thinking Sri Lankans.

In the euphoria of the success of a party promising a new dawn, unfortunately, many political commentators kept silent but it is becoming pretty obvious that most are awaking to the reality of a false dawn. It could not have come at a worse time for the NPP: in spite of the initial failures to act on the warnings regarding the devastating effects of Ditwah, the government was making good progress in sorting problems out, when Ranwala met with an accident.

The excuses given by the police for not doing a breathalyser test, or blood alcohol levels, promptly, are simply pathetic. Half-life of alcohol is around 4-5 hours and unless Ranwala was dead drunk, it is extremely unlikely any significant amounts of alcohol would be detected in a blood sample taken after 24 hours. Maybe the knowledge of this that made government Spokesmen to claim boldly that proper action would be taken irrespective of the position held. Now that the Government Analyst has not found any alcohol in the blood, no action is needed! Instead, the government seems to have got the IGP to investigate the police. Would any police officers suffer for doing a favour to the government? That is the million-dollar question!

Unfortunately, all this woke up a sleeping giant; a problem that the government hoped would be solved by the passage of time. If the government is hoping that the dishonesty of one of its prominent members would be forgotten with the passage of time, it will be in for a rude shock. When questioned by journalists repeated, the Cabinet spokesman had to say action would be taken if the claim of the doctorate was false. However, he added that the party has not decided what that action would be! What about the promise to rid Parliament of crooks?

It is now clear that the NPP government is not any different from the predecessors and that Sri Lankan voters are forced to contend with yet another false dawn!

by Dr Upul Wijayawardhana ✍️

Opinion

Ceylon pot tea: redefining value, sustainability and future of global tea

Published

2 days ago

2025/12/22

Thilina Walpola

The international tea industry is experiencing one of the most difficult periods in its history. Producers worldwide are caught in a paradox: tea must be made “cheaper than water” to stay competitive, yet this very race to the bottom erodes profitability, weakens supply chains, and drives away the most talented professionals whose expertise is essential for innovation. At the heart of this crisis lies the structure of commodity tea pricing. Although the auction system has served the world for over a century, it has clear limitations. It rewards volume rather than innovation, penalises differentiation, and leaves little room for value-added product development.

Sri Lanka, one of the world’s finest tea origins, feels this pressure more intensely than most. The industry’s traditional reliance on auctions prevents it from accessing the full premium that its authentic climate, terroir, and craftsmanship deserve. The solution is not to dismantle auctions—because they maintain transparency and global trust—but to evolve beyond them. For tea to thrive again, Ceylon Tea must enter the product market, where brand value, wellness benefits, and consumer experience define price—not weight.

Sri Lanka’s Unique Comparative Advantage

Sri Lanka possesses both competitive and comparative advantage unmatched by any other tea-producing nation. One of the least-discussed scientific advantages is its low gravitational pull, enabling the tea plant to circulate nutrients differently and produce a uniquely delicate, flavour-rich leaf. This natural phenomenon, combined with diverse microclimates, gives Sri Lankan tea extraordinary antioxidant density, rich polyphenols, and a full sensory profile representative of the land and its people.

However, this advantage is undermined by weaknesses in basic agronomy. Most estates do not use soil augers, and soil sampling is often inconsistent or unscientific. This leads to overuse of artificial fertilizer, underinvestment in regenerative practices, and weak soil organic matter (SOM). Without scientific soil management, even a world-class tea origin can lose its competitive edge. Encouragingly, discussions are already underway with the Assistant Indian High Commissioner in Kandy to explore sourcing 3,000 scientifically engineered soil augers for Sri Lanka’s perennial agriculture sector—a transformative step toward soil intelligence and sustainable input management.

Improving SOM, moderating fertilizer misuse, and systematically diagnosing soil nutrient deficiencies represent true sustainability—not cosmetic commitments. Plantation agriculture, which supports over one million Sri Lankan livelihoods, depends on this shift.

The Real Economic Challenge: Price per Kilogram

The most urgent sustainability problem is not climate change or labour cost—it is the low price per kilogram Sri Lanka receives for its tea. Nearly 20% of the tea leaf becomes “refuse tea”, a stigmatized fraction that still contains antioxidants and valuable nutrients but fetches a low price at auctions. The system inherently undervalues almost a fifth of the raw material.

A rational solution is to market the entire tea leaf without discrimination, transforming every component—tender leaf, mature leaf, fiber, and fines—into a premium product with a minimum retail value of USD 15 per kilogram. Achieving this requires product innovation, not further cost reduction.

Ceylon Pot Tea: A Transformative Opportunity

Ceylon Pot Tea emerges as a comprehensive solution capable of addressing long-standing structural issues in Sri Lanka’s tea industry. Unlike traditional tea grades, Pot Tea compresses the entire fired dhool into a high-value cube, similar to the global success of soup cubes. Every part of the leaf is represented, unlocking maximum biochemical utilisation and offering consumers a fuller taste profile with richer aroma, deeper colour, and higher antioxidant content.

Pot Tea is perfectly aligned with the health and wellness market, one of the fastest-growing global consumer segments. As an Herbal Medicinal Beverage (HMB), it captures the complete phytonutritional matrix of the tea leaf, including polyphenols, catechins, and climate-influenced compounds unique to Ceylon. The product also offers storytelling power: every cube reflects the terroir, the gentle fingers that plucked the leaf, and the mystical nature of tea grown in a land with unusually low gravitational intensity.

Already, international partners—particularly in Russia—and domestic innovators have expressed enthusiasm. Pot Tea aligns closely with the policy direction set by the Hon. Samantha Vidyarathne and the NPP Government, especially the national goal of achieving 400 million Kgs of national annual production per year by unlocking new value chains and premium product categories.

Why Immediate Government Intervention Is Necessary

For Sri Lanka to fully benefit from Ceylon Pot Tea and other modernized value chains, the government must urgently introduce:

1. Minimum Yield Benchmarks per hectare (3-year targets) for all perennial crops, informed by scientific investment appraisals.

2. A classification shift from “plantations” to land-based investment enterprises, recognising the capital-intensive, long-term nature of tea cultivation.

3. Incentives for soil testing, soil auger adoption, and SOM improvement programs.

4. Support for value-added tea manufacturing and export diversification.

These steps would create an enabling environment for Pot Tea to scale rapidly and position Sri Lanka as the world’s leading innovator in tea-based wellness products.

Way Forward: Positioning Ceylon Pot Tea for Global Leadership

The path ahead requires a coordinated national and industry-level effort. Sri Lanka must shift from simply producing tea to designing tea experiences. Ceylon Pot Tea can lead this transformation if:

1. Branding and Certification Are Strengthened

CCT (Ceylon Certified Tea) standards must be universally adopted to guarantee purity, origin authenticity, and ethical production practices.

2. Research, Soil Science & Agronomy Are Modernized

With scientific soil audits, optimized fertigation, and regenerative agriculture, Sri Lanka can unlock higher yields and stronger biochemical profiles in its leaf.

3. A Global Wellness Narrative Is Created

Position Pot Tea as a nutritional, therapeutic, anti-aging, and calming beverage suited for the modern lifestyle.

4. Export Market Activation Begins Immediately

Pilot shipments, influencer partnerships, and cross-border digital campaigns should begin with Russia, the Middle East, Japan, and premium EU markets.

5. Producers Are Incentivised to Convert Dhools to Cubes

This ensures minimal waste, improved margins, and equitable value distribution across the supply chain.

Conclusion: A New Dawn for Ceylon Tea

Ceylon Pot Tea offers Sri Lanka a rare chance to pivot from a commodity-driven past to a premium, wellness-oriented, high-margin future. It aligns economic sustainability with environmental responsibility. It empowers estate communities with modern agronomy. And most importantly, it transforms every gram of the tea leaf into value—finally rewarding the land, the planter, and the plucker.

If implemented with vision and urgency, Ceylon Pot Tea will not only revitalise an industry under immense pressure but also secure Sri Lanka’s place as the world’s most innovative and scientifically grounded tea nation.

By. Dammike Kobbekaduwe

(www.vivonta.lk & www.planters.lk) ✍️