Midweek Review

Alborada: Dawn Song or Dawn Rape?

Published

4 years ago

2022/03/9

By Carmen Wickramagamage

Ashoka Handagama’s latest film, Alborada, introduces itself as “the poem that Neruda never wrote.” What is this poem? Released on February 14 to coincide with Valentine’s Day, the irony of the timing is hard to miss for Alborada culminates in the horrific rape by Neruda, the great love poet, of a female latrine cleaner during his brief stay in Ceylon as the Chilean Consul. Hardly a subject that lends itself to poetry though the recitations in the film, in the original Spanish, of poems that Neruda did write are mesmerizing. Perhaps this explains why Garcia Marquez chose to characterize Neruda as “the greatest poet of the twentieth century in any language”. What is Handagama’s intention in the film?

In interviews, Handagama has spoken of his film as a challenge to Western hegemony that he claims operated to push this ignominious act under the carpet. But he has made it clear that unearthing a little-known fact about a poet hailed today as a critic of capitalism and champion of the oppressed is not his only intention. He sees his film as making an intervention into the contemporary discourse on women’s right to bodily autonomy in the age of #MeToo. Handagama is clearly well-intentioned. It is therefore necessary to examine how Alborada intervenes, through its representation of the scene of rape, in the rape culture that naturalizes masculine privilege and feminine vulnerability.

Source of the story

The source of what we know about the incident is Neruda himself. While he may not have composed a poem about the rape, he did “confess” to it in his memoirs translated into English by Hadley St. Martin as I confess I have lived: memoirs (1977). Written some forty years later, one page of the eleven pages (out of three-hundred fifty) that he devotes to his Ceylonese sojourn concerns itself with this incident. Though it created hardly a ripple in Sri Lanka, in Chile, Neruda’s admission stirred up a storm when the Chilean Parliament voted in 2018 to rename the airport in Santiago after him, with women and human rights activists vociferously protesting against the plan citing this incident. Not that the incident was completely unknown in Sri Lanka but the rumour that was doing the rounds was more along the lines of “something” between Neruda and his “domestic”. Handagama has said that he first read about it in a book by Tissa Abeysekera which, according to Sarath Chandrajeewa, went this way: “the great poet, the Nobel prize winner who loved a scavenger woman in Wellawatte”. No mention of rape there. Transferring a brief reference in Neruda’s memoirs into film and making it the pièce de résistance of a visually powerful medium is a radical gesture but how radical is it in its contribution to the ongoing conversation on rape?

Handagama has tried to distance himself from Neruda, calling the film his “creation” just as Neruda’s memoirs were his but the film is in large measure faithful to Neruda’s recollections of his stay in Ceylon, highlighting the theme of solitude that runs like a refrain through the young poet’s account and offering a sympathetic portrait of a man ill at ease in the “narrow colonialism” of the British but intrigued by the sights, sounds and people of Ceylon. Just as Neruda is the subject of his memoirs, so is he in the film. In only one respect is there a significant deviation: the representation of rape.

The Incident

In Neruda’s account, his interest in the woman begins with his curiosity about the mysterious workings of his latrine. When he finally sees the woman who cleans it, he is not repulsed, calling her instead the “the most beautiful woman I had yet seen in Ceylon” (p. 99) and elevating her above the rest through appellations such as “queen” and goddess”. But, when she disdains his tokens of love in the form of silks and fruits, he exercises his white male prerogative over native women’s bodies by raping her: “One morning , I decided to go all the way. I got a strong grip on her wrist and stared into her eyes. There was no language I could talk with her. Unsmiling, she let herself be led away and was soon naked in my bed. Her waist, so very slim, her full hips, the brimming cups of her breasts made her like one of the thousand-year-old sculptures from the south of India. It was the coming together of a man and a statue” (p. 100).

Neruda plays down the violence of the encounter in his penitential recounting, resorting instead to euphemisms. The woman does not struggle. She “let herself be led” (Is she deterred by the “strong grip on her wrist”?). She does not scream for help (Is she aware of its futility given the isolated location of the bungalow?). She was “soon naked”, how she came to be naked elided, its place taken by an aestheticized description of the female form reminiscent of classical Sanskrit poetry that deflects attention from the violence. Some trace of the woman’s resistance is acknowledged in her unresponsiveness. At the climactic moment, when he forces himself on her, she turns into a sculpture in his eyes, turning Neruda in turn into a Pygmalion in reverse. Where Pygmalion (in Ovid’s Metamorphosis) manages to obtain his heart’s desire by turning a statue (thanks to Venus’ intervention) into the woman of his dreams, Neruda’s touch turns a living, breathing woman into a sculpture. The description ends with lines that have self-loathing write large over it: “She was right to despise me . The experience was never repeated” (p. 100).

Its Representation

How does Handagama render this incident in film? Unlike in the memoirs, here, the audience is prepped from the start for the impending climax through the sighting of the Parvati statue by Neruda on arrival, his frolics with members of the Sakkili community that has Ratné Aiya incensed, and the rhythmic chiming of the latrine-cleaner’s anklets that wakes him up at dawn from a night of love-making. When the rape finally occurs, it is portrayed on screen in all its brutality. The woman screams, she struggles valiantly to escape, she has to be forcibly detained and stripped naked before the final humiliation of rape. There is nothing subtle or indirect about it. Why this directorial decision to deviate? Is it that Handagama wanted to dispel any illusions that his audience may entertain about the great poet Neruda? Or did he want to force his audience to confront head on the brutality of rape against the backdrop of a rape culture that thrives on misconceptions regarding women’s consent?

I find Handagama’s directorial decisions problematic on many fronts. For one thing, in the eyes of the law, ‘rape’ is sexual intercourse without consent, what constitutes “absence of consent” carefully delineated to accommodate the different scenarios that qualify as “rape” in the eyes of the law. Here, the woman violently struggles, thus confirming a misunderstanding “if there is rape, there must be evidence of struggle.” In a culture where the tendency is to hold the victim responsible for triggering the rape situation, this is dangerous. In anchoring rape in “consent”, the law recognizes the extenuating circumstances where a victim may not be able to physically resist or even say ‘no’. In Neruda’s account, the circumstances that prevent the woman from resisting or saying ‘no’ vocally are very clear. In hindsight, he too acknowledges her ‘no’: “She kept her eyes wide open all the while, completely unresponsive” (p. 100).

Beyond the issue of consent, his portrayal of the scene of rape also raises questions on how to represent violence on screen. Much has been written on the intrinsic violence of representation in attempts to represent violence. The risk is doubled when it comes to sexual violence as Laura Mulvey and others have pointed out as it turns spectators into voyeurs who wittingly or unwittingly participate in the violence enacted on screen. In Alborada, we all join Ratné Aiya at the “keyhole” or aperture to gaze at the scene unfolding within, whether we derive a vicarious pleasure from that or not. Handagama tries to draw the attention of the audience to the very real pain of the woman by having a tear course down her cheek as she stares directly at the camera and at us while averting her gaze from the perpetrator. By doing so, he restores the flesh-and-blood woman to the scene of the rape where Neruda had seen a statue. Unfortunately, the protracted violence of the rape scene is in danger of slipping from pathos to bathos. Sarath Chandrajeewa has already said that he found the scene where the predator and his prey circle round the massive four-poster bed comical. I agree. The scene was too reminiscent of “ottu sellang”, a children’s game of “catch me if you can”, for me!

Life after rape

Feminist critics such as Sharon Marcus and Rajeswari Sunder Rajan have emphasized the importance of rewriting the normative rape script which sees the woman as victim and her defilement as marking her for life. In Sri Lanka, women are enjoined to protect their character (a euphemism for sexual purity) as if it were their life, its loss a fate worse than death. Marcus and Sunder Rajan, therefore, argue that it is essential to speak of rape survivors, not rape victims, who thereby refuse the powerlessness assigned to them in a “gendered grammar of violence”(Marcus).

In Neruda’s memoirs, at the end of the account, attention is redirected to Neruda himself albeit on a note of self-recrimination: “She was right to despise me” (p. 100). The woman’s subsequent fate is of little concern to him. In the film, the lines translate into an image of Neruda trading places with the latrine cleaner, first taking up the brush and cleaning the latrine and then walking towards the sea carrying the latrine bucket on his head in a show of abject humility. As for the woman, the camera follows her out of the bedroom and into the sea where she tries frenziedly to rid herself of the defiling touch, her facial expressions indicating her disgust. She is then seen swimming deeper into the ocean, with the ocean waters gradually submerging her completely. Only the red cloth survives to create patterns in the water as it did at the start of the film. Clearly, there is no life after rape.

The film, however, adds another scene in an attempt to locate the phenomenon of rape in the present. In this scene the woman resurfaces from the sea framed against a skyline featuring a jet-ski. How to read it? Is it to remind the audience that, some one hundred years later, nothing much has changed? Or is to hold out hope that in the age of #MeToo, something is about to change?

But, according to Sarath Chandrajeewa (in “Beyond the Fiction of Alborada“)who claims to have traced the identity of the woman raped by Neruda, the “real” woman did not drown herself. She returned to her community but was married off by her family to an older man because she had “lost her virginity” and, when her husband died shortly after, the now pregnant woman jumped into the funeral pyre of her husband and committed suicide, which some in the community described as “Sathi Pooja”. Chandrajeewa even speculates that the husband’s death from alcohol poisoning was “either because he was delighted with his beautiful young bride or perhaps due to grief” (!). This information that Chandrajeewa says he gathered as part of his research among the Sakkili community who lived in Wellawatte and Bambalapitiya in the 1970s raises many questions for me. Did the community that the woman belonged to (the lowly scavenger caste) uphold norms of feminine sexual purity that have their basis in the genteel classes? Did they practice “Sathi Pooja” of which there are no documented cases in Ceylon and which, even in India is very much tied to region, class and caste as scholars like Lata Mani and Gayatri Spivak have pointed out? Pregnant women in any case do not commit Sathi Pooja. They wait until they give birth. How much does Chandrajeewa “know” of their ways?

This is not the only attempt at endowing the woman with an afterlife. Another account of the nameless woman’s subsequent fate has been doing the rounds of late due to an article by Kumar Gunawardena in The Island in 2020 where he, drawing on a story titled “Brumpy’s Daughter” in Tissa Devendra’s On Horseshoe Street, claims that the raped woman’s story had a happy ending. According to Gunawardena, Neruda “did the right thing” by the woman, who now has a name, Thangamma, by marrying her off to his retainer Brumpy. And when a daughter (Neruda’s) was born in due course, she was named Imelda after Neruda’s mother at his behest and supported financially by Neruda through George Keyt. Devendra meets Imelda Ratnayake (last name from the foster father Brumpy) much later when he is heading a Kachcheri where she too works and attracts his attention because of her striking appearance. She ends up marrying a Chilean, a Neruda devotee, who had worked for a while in Ceylon. After her marriage, Imelda settles in Chile with her husband and meets Devendra again at a conference in Mexico. It was a feel-good story. But the feeling was short-lived. When Michael Roberts reprinted Kumar Gunawardena’s account in his blog Thuppahi, someone by the name of Manel Fonseka intervened to spoil it by declaring “If I’m not mistaken, Devendra’s whole story was exactly that! A STORY! No basis in truth”. If Manel Fonseka is right, Gunawardena, a medical doctor by training, had failed to recognize the difference between fact and fiction!

In all this, there is no room for the subjectivity of the woman who was raped. She does not speak. For Neruda, the reason is the language barrier though he turns that into something more by comparing her to a “shy jungle animal” belonging in “another kind of existence, in another world” (p. 100). Handagama restores some humanity to her by adding that artistically placed single tear but that’s where he stops. She never speaks. The gaze in the film is predominantly Neruda’s, the camera angles adopting Neruda’s perspective on the receding figure of the latrine cleaner reminiscent of a classical South Indian sculpture although, unfortunately, her walk could well be that of a model on the runway. Similarly, her face takes on a bronze sheen when Neruda intercepts her to remind us that, in his mind, she resembles a statue. Given the race, caste, class and gender of the latrine cleaner, it is unlikely we will ever know what happened to her. Chandrajeewa, who claims he found the “real” woman, assigns her an exceptional fate as a “mad” woman (suffering from “Idiopathic Psychological Disorder”) who commits Sathi Pooja. Even Tissa Devendra’s story ultimately fails to imagine for her a life that is not defined by the rape. I like to think that there was life after rape for her, that she, though no doubt traumatized, survived the rape without having to play the prescribed role in the normative script for the rape victim–forced marriage and unwanted pregnancy–although, gender norms at the time being such, she could not cry out loud #HeToo!

(Carmen Wickramagamage is Professor in English at the University of Peradeniya)

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Midweek Review

Opp. MP’s hasty stand on US air strikes in Nigeria and Sri Lanka’s foreign policy dilemma

Published

4 days ago

2026/01/14

Sahan Weerasooriya

Somaliland's President Abdirahman Abdullahi Mohamed (right), posing for a photograph with Israel's Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, at the Presidential Palace in Hargeisa (Pic released by the Somaliland Presidential Office on 06 January, 2026)

Israel’s recognition of Somaliland on 26 December, 2025, couldn’t have taken place without US approval. The establishment of full diplomatic ties with Somaliland, a breakaway part of Somalia, and Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar’s visit to that country, drew swift criticism from Somalia, as well as others. Among those who had been upset were Türkiye, Saudi Arabia and the African Union.

The US-backed move in Africa didn’t receive public attention as did the raid on Venezuela. But, the Somaliland move is definitely part of the overall US global strategy to overwhelm, undermine and belittle Russia and China.

And on the other hand, the Somaliland move is a direct challenge to Türkiye, a NATO member that maintains a large military presence in Somalia, and to Yemen based Houthis who had disrupted Red Sea shipping, in support of Hamas, in the wake of Israeli retaliation over the 07 October, 2023, raid on the Jewish State, possibly out of sheer desperation of becoming a nonentity. The Israeli-US move in Africa should be examined taking into consideration the continuing onslaught on Gaza and attacks on Lebanon, Iran, Syria, Yemen, and Qatar.

Many an eyebrow was raised over Opposition MP Dr. Kavinda Jayawardana’s solo backing for the recent US air strikes in Nigeria.

The Gampaha District Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) lawmaker handed over a letter to the US Embassy here last week applauding US President Donald Trump’s order to bomb Nigeria on Christmas Day. The letter was addressed to President Trump

( https://island.lk/kavinda-lauds-us-president-trumps-actions-to-protect-christians-in-nigeria/)

The former UNPer who had been in the forefront of a high-profile campaign demanding justice for the 2019 Easter Sunday terror victims, in an obvious solo exercise praised Trump for defending the Nigerian Christian community. The US bombing targeted Islamic State Terrorists (ISIS) operating in that country’s northwest, where Muslims predominate.

The only son of the late UNP Minister Dr. Jayalath Jayawardana, he seemed to have conveniently forgotten that such military actions couldn’t be endorsed under any circumstances. Against the backdrop of Dr. Jayawardana’s commendation for US military action against Nigeria, close on the heels of the murderous 03 January US raid on oil rich Venezuela, perhaps it would be pertinent to seek the response of the Catholic Church in that regard.

President Trump, in a wide-ranging interview with the New York Times, has warned of further strikes in case Christians continued to be killed in the West African nation. International media have disputed President Trump’s claim of only the Christians being targeted.

Both Christians and Muslims – the two main religious groups in the country of more than 230 million people – have been victims of attacks by radical Islamists.

The US and the Nigerian government of President Bola Tinubu reached a consensus on Christmas Day attacks. Nigeria has roughly equal numbers of Christians – predominantly in the south – and Muslims, who are mainly concentrated in the north.

In spite of increasingly volatile global order, the Vatican maintained what can be comfortably described as the defence of the national sovereignty. The Vatican has been critical of the Venezuelan government but is very much unlikely to throw its weight behind US attacks on that country and abduction of its President and the First Lady.

Dr. Jayawardana’s stand on US intervention in Nigeria cannot definitely be the position of the main Opposition party, nor any other political party represented in Parliament here. The National People’s Power (NPP) government refrained from commenting on US attacks on Nigeria, though it opposed US action in Venezuela. Although the US and Nigeria have consensus on Christmas Day attacks and may agree on further attacks, but such interventions are very much unlikely to change the situation on the ground.

SL on US raid

Let me reproduce Sri Lanka’s statement on US attacks on Venezuela, verbatim:

“The Government of Sri Lanka is deeply concerned about the recent developments in Venezuela and is closely monitoring the situation.

Sri Lanka emphasises the need to respect principles of international law and the UN Charter, such as the prohibition of the use of force, non-intervention, peaceful settlement of international disputes and the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states.

Sri Lanka attaches great importance to the safety and well-being of the people of Venezuela and the stability of the region and calls on all parties to prioritize peaceful resolution through de-escalation and dialogue.

At this crucial juncture, it is important that the United Nations and its organs such as the UN Security Council be seized of the matter and work towards a peaceful resolution taking into consideration the safety, well-being and the sovereign rights of the Venezuelan people.”

That statement, dated 05 January, was issued by the Foreign Affairs, Foreign Employment and Tourism Ministry. Almost all political parties, represented in Parliament, except one-time darling of the LTTE, Illankai Thamil Arasu Kadchi (ITAK), condemned the US attacks on Venezuela and threats on Cuba, Colombia and Iran. The US is also targeting China, Russia and even the European Union.

Dr. Jayawardana requested coverage for his visit to the US Embassy here to hand over his letter, hence the publication of his ‘love’ letter to President Trump on page 2 of the 09 January edition of The Island.

There had never been a previous instance of a Sri Lankan lawmaker, or a political party, endorsing unilateral military action taken by the US or any other country. One-time Western Provincial Council member and member of Parliament since 2015, Jayawardana should have known better than to trust President Trump’s position on Nigeria. Perhaps the SJBer felt that an endorsement of US action, allegedly supportive of the Nigerian Catholic community, may facilitate his political agenda. Obviously, the Opposition MP endorsed US military action purely for domestic political advantage. The lawmaker appears to have simply disregarded the growing criticism of US actions in various parts of the world.

The German and French response to US actions, not only in Venezuela, but various other regions, as well, underscore the growing threat posed by President Trump’s agenda.

French President Emmanuel Macron and German leader Frank-Walter Steinmeier have sharply condemned US foreign policy under Donald Trump, declaring, respectively, that Washington was “breaking free from international rules” and the world risked turning into a “robber’s den”.

US threat to annex Greenland at the expense of Denmark, a founding member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) ,and the grouping itself, has undermined the post WWII world order to such an extent, the developing crisis seems irreversible.

Focus on UAE

Indian Army Chief Gen. Upendra Dwivedi visited the United Arab Emirates on 05 and 06 January. His visit took place amidst rising tension on the Arabian Peninsula, following the Saudi-led military coalition launching air attacks on Yemen based Southern Transitional Council (STC) whose leader Aidarous al-Zubaid was brought to Abu Dhabi.

In the aftermath of the Saudi led strikes on Yemen port, held by the STC, the UAE declared that it would withdraw troops deployed in Yemen. The move, on the part of UAE, seems to be meant to de-escalate the situation, but the clandestine operation, undertaken by that country to rescue a Saudi target, appeared to have caused further deterioration of Saudi-UAE relations. Further deterioration is likely as both parties seek to re-assert control over the developing situation.

From Abu Dhabi, General Dwivedi arrived in Colombo on a two-day visit. Like his predecessors, General Dwivedi visited the Indian Army memorial at Pelawatte, where he paid respects to those who paid the supreme sacrifice during deployment of the Indian Army here – 1987 July to 1990 March. That monument is nothing but a testament to the foolish and flawed Indian policy. Those who portray that particular Indian military mission as their first major peace keeping operation overseas must keep in mind that over half a dozen terrorist groups were sponsored by India.

Just over a year after the end of that mission, one of those groups – the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) -assassinated Congress leader Rajiv Gandhi, the former Premier who sent the military mission here.

India never accepted responsibility for the death and destruction caused by its intervention in Sri Lanka. In fact, the Indian action led to an unprecedented situation when another Sri Lankan terrorist group PLOTE (People’s Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam) mounted a raid on the Maldives in early Nov. 1988. Two trawler loads of PLOTE cadres were on a mission to depose Maldivian President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom on a contract given by a disgruntled Maldivian businessman. India intervened swiftly and brought the situation under control. But, the fact that those who had been involved in the sea-borne raid on the Maldives were Indian trained and they left Sri Lanka’s northern province, which was then under Indian Army control, were conveniently ignored.

Except the LTTE, all other major Tamil terrorist groups, including the PLOTE, entered the political mainstream in 1990, and over the years, were represented in Parliament. It would be pertinent to mention that except the EPDP (Eelam People’s Democratic Party) all other Indian trained groups in 2001 formed the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), under the leadership of Illankai Thamil Arasu Kadchi (ITAK), to support the separatist agenda in Parliament. Sri Lanka’s triumph over the LTTE, in May 2009, brought that despicable project to an end.

The Indian Army statement on General Dwivedi’s visit here, posted on X, seemed like a propaganda piece, especially against the backdrop of continuing controversy over the still secret Indo-Lanka Memorandum of Understanding on defence that was entered into in April last year. Within months after the signing of the defence MoU, India acquired controlling stake of the Colombo Dockyard Ltd., a move that has been shrouded in controversy.

Indian High Commissioner Santosh Jha’s response to my colleague Sanath Nanayakkara’s query regarding the strategic dimension of the India–Sri Lanka Defence Cooperation Agreement following the Indian Army Chief’s recent visit, the former was cautious in his response. Jha asserted that there was “nothing beyond what is included” in the provisions of the pact, which was signed by President Anura Kumara Dissanayake and has generated controversy in Sri Lanka due to the absence of public discourse on its contents.

Framing the agreement as a self-contained document focused purely on bilateral defence cooperation, Jha said this reflected India’s official position. By directing attention solely to the text of the agreement, the High Commissioner indicated that there were no unstated strategic calculations involved, aligning with the Sri Lankan Foreign Minister’s recent clarification that the pact was not a military agreement but one that dealt with Indian support.

Nanayakkara had the opportunity to raise the issue at a special media briefing called by Jha at the IHC recently.

Julie Chung departs

The US attack on Venezuela, and the subsequent threats directed at other countries, including some of its longtime allies, should influence our political parties to examine US and Indian stealthy interventions here, leading to the overthrowing of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, in July 2022.

The US Embassy in Colombo recently announced that Julie Chung, who oversaw the overthrowing of Gotabaya Rajapaksa, would end her near four-year term. Former Indian High Commissioner in Colombo Gopal Baglay, who, too, played a significant role in the regime change project, ended his term in December 2023 and took up position in Canberra as India’s top diplomat there.

Both Chung and Baglay have been accused of egging on the putsch directly by urging Aragalaya time Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena, on 13 July, 2022, to take over the presidency. Former Minister Wimal Weerawansa and top author Sena Thoradeniya, in their comments on Aragalaya accused Chung of unprecedented intervention, whereas Prof. Sunanada Maddumabanadara found fault with Baglay for the same.

The US Embassy, in a statement dated 07 January, 2026, quoted the outgoing US Ambassador as having said: “I have loved every moment of my time in Sri Lanka. From day one, my focus has been to advance America’s interests—strengthening our security partnerships, expanding trade and investment, and promoting education and democratic values that make both our nations stronger. Together, we’ve built a relationship that delivers results for the American people and supports a free, open, and secure Indo-Pacific.”

The Embassy concluded that statement reiterating the US commitment to its partnership with Sri Lanka and to build on the strong foundation, established during Ambassador Chung’s nearly four-year tenure.

Sri Lanka can expect to increasingly come under both US and Indian pressure over Chinese investments here. It would be interesting to see how the NPP government solves the crisis caused by the moratorium on foreign research vessel visits, imposed in 2024 by the then President Ranil Wickremesinghe. The NPP is yet to reveal its position on that moratorium, over one year after the lapse of the ban on such vessels. Wickremesinghe gave into intense US and Indian pressure in the wake of Chinese ship visits.

In spite of US-India relations under strain due to belligerent US actions, they are likely to adopt a common approach here to undermine Sri Lanka’s relations with China. But, the situation is so dicey, India may be compelled to review its position. The US declaration that a much-anticipated trade deal with India collapsed because Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi hasn’t heeded President Trump’s demand to call him.

This was revealed by US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick in the ‘All-In Podcast’ aired on Thursday, 08 January. The media quoted Indian spokesman Randhir Jaiswal as having said on the following day: “The characterisation of these discussions in the reported remarks is not accurate.” Jaiswal added that India “remains interested in a mutually beneficial trade deal between two complementary economies and looks forward to concluding it.”

Sri Lanka in deepening dilemma

Sri Lanka, struggling to cope up with post-Aragalaya economic, political and social issues, is inundated with foreign policy issues.

The failure on the part of the government and the Opposition to reach consensus on foreign policy challenges/matters has further weakened the country’s position. If those political parties represented in Parliament at least discussed matters of importance at the relevant consultative committee or the sectoral oversight committee, lawmaker Jayawardana wouldn’t have endorsed the US bombing of Nigeria.

Sri Lanka and Nigeria enjoy close diplomatic relations and the SJB MP’s unexpected move must have caused quite a controversy, though the issue at hand didn’t receive public attention. Regardless of the US-Nigerian consensus on the Christmas Day bombing, perhaps it would be unwise on the part of Sri Lanka to support military action at any level for obvious reasons.

Sri Lanka taking a stand on external military interventions of any sort seems comical at a time our war-winning military had been hauled up before the Geneva Human Rights Council for defending the country against the LTTE that had a significant conventional military capacity in addition to being “the most ruthless terrorist organisation” as it was described by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation. The group capitalised on experience gained in fighting the Indian Army during 1987 July-1990 March period and posed quite a threat. Within five months after the resumption of fighting, in June 1990, the LTTE ordered the entire Muslim population to leave the predominantly Tamil northern province.

No foreign power at least bothered to issue a statement condemning the LTTE. MP Jayawardana’s statement supporting US military action in support of Christian community should be examined in Sri Lanka’s difficult battle against terrorism that took a very heavy toll. Perhaps, political parties represented in Parliament, excluding those who still believe in a separatist project, should reexamine their stand on Sri Lanka’s unitary status.

By Shamindra Ferdinando

Midweek Review

Buddhist Iconography

Published

4 days ago

2026/01/14

Sahan Weerasooriya

A Buddha statue from Mathura with a single curl, 2nd cent. CE

Seeing a new kind of head ornament on a recent reproduction of the iconic Avukana Buddha statue, made me ponder how the Enlightened One would have looked in real life, and what relationship that may or may not have with Buddhist iconography. Obviously, there is no record or evidence of any rendering of the Buddha made by an artist who saw him alive, but there are a few references to his appearance in the Pali Sutta Pitaka, that affirms, as he himself has said, Buddha was nothing other than a human being, albeit an extraordinarily intelligent one (Dhammika 2021).

Before enlightenment, Siduhath Gotama was described as having black hair and a beard. One account describes him as “handsome, of fine appearance, pleasant to see, with a good complexion and a beautiful form and countenance” (D.I,114). Venerable Ananda has said, “It is wonderful, truly marvelous how serene is the good Gotama’s presence, how clear and radiant is his complexion. Just as golden jujube fruit in the autumn is clear and radiant … so too is the good Gotama’s complexion” (A.I,181). If Venerable Ananda’s comparison is correct, Gotama must have been of what is called ‘Wheatish’ complexion common in present-day North India, which is described as typically falling between fair and dusky complexions, exhibiting a light brown hue with golden or olive undertones (Fitzpatrick scale Type III to VI).

The Buddha is also described as a slim tall person; slim, perhaps, as a result of practising asceticism before enlightenment and spartan life thereafter. As he aged, he also suffered from back pain and other ailments, according to Sutta Pitaka.

Artists’ imagination

We need not argue that the depictions of the Buddha we see across countries, in various media, are the imaginations of the artists influenced by their local cultures and traditions. The potentially controversial aspect regarding Buddhist iconography is the depiction of his hair, which is almost universal. There are several references in the Sutta Pitaka, where various Brahmin youths derogatorily referred to the Buddha as “bald-pated recluse” (MN 81). There is no reason to believe that he would have been any different from the rest of the Bhikkhus who had and have clean shaven heads. In fact, when King Ajatasattu visited the Buddha for the first time, he had trouble identifying the Buddha from the rest of the sangha, and an attendant had to help the king.

In early Buddhist art, the Buddha was represented by the wheel of dhamma, Bodhi tree, throne, lotus, the footprints, or a parasol. For example, in the carvings of Sanchi temple built in the third century BCE, the Buddha is depicted by some of these symbols, but never in human form. Depiction of the Buddha in human form has started around the first century CE in two places, Gandhara and Mathura. In both places, the Buddha is depicted with hair, and not as a “bald-pated recluse” the way the Sutta Pitaka depicts him.

Figure 1. Bimaran Casket

No scholarly agreeement

So, the question is who started this artistic trend, was it the Gandhara artists under the Greek influence or the Mathura artists following their own traditions? There is no scholarly agreement on this; Western scholars think it was the Greek influence that made presenting the Buddha in human form while Ananda Coomaraswamy presents another theory (Coomaraswamy 1972).

The earliest dateable representation of the Buddha in human form is found on the Bimaran casket found during the exploration of a stupa near Bimaran, Afghanistan in 1834. It has been dated to the first century CE using the coins found along with it, that also depict and refer to the Buddha by name in Greko-Bactrian. This reliquary, a gold cylinder embossed with figures and artwork, is on display at the British Museum (Figure 1). Under the Hellenistic influence, it must have been natural for the Gandhara artists to represent a revered or divine figure in human form; Greeks have been doing it for millennia. The standing Buddha figure is depicted wearing the hair in the form of a knot over the crown. In other carvings from the same period, most male figures are shown with the same hair style. Also, it appears that both Spartan men and women tied their hair in a knot over the crown of the head, known as the “Knidian hairstyle” (Wikipedia). The Gandhara sculpture is famous for the Hellenistic style of realism (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Gandhara statue from 1-2
century CE

Coomaraswamy’s reasoning

Coomaraswamy reasons that the Bhakti movement – the loving devotion of the followers towards the deities, is the reason for the emergence of Buddha figure in Mathura. We cannot say for sure if the Gandhara art induced the Mathura artists to break away from their tradition of aniconic symbolism. What is clear is that they have been influenced by the trend to elevate religious leaders to divinity, to impress the followers and compete or to outdo the practices of other religions. This tradition, which predates the Buddha, has introduced the concept of the thirty-two characteristics or marks of great personalities.

It is this trend that has introduced divine interventions and other mysticisms to Buddhism and culminated in famous poems as Asvagosha’s Buddhacharithaya and exegeses as Lalithavistara a few centuries later and continues to date. Instead of following realism as the Gandhara artists did, Mathura artists have followed this tradition and incorporated the thirty-two characteristics of a great person into their representation of the Buddha figure.

Some of these marks are described as “… there is a protuberance on the head, this is, for the great man, the venerable Gotama, a mark of a great man; the hair bristles, his bristling hair is blue or dark blue, the color of collyrium, turning in curls, turning to the right; the tuft of hair between the eyebrows on his forehead is very white like cotton; he is golden in color, has skin like gold; eyes very blue, like sapphires; under the soles of his feet there are wheels, with a thousand rims and naves, complete in every way…(DN 30, M 91). Thus, the tradition of adding the protuberance referred to as Usnisha to Buddha statues started.

Buddhist traditions in different forms

This practice has been adopted by all Buddhist traditions in different forms. The highly effective outcome of incorporating these great marks into the statuary is that it has created a globally recognisable symbol that is independent of the artist’s skills, cultural affiliation or the medium used. Without such distinct features, we would have difficulty in distinguishing the depictions of the Enlightened One from those of other monks or other religious leaders such as Mahaveera. Nevertheless, in addition to its spiritual aspect, Buddhist iconography has been a flourishing art form, which has allowed human talent and ingenuity to thrive over millennia.

Let us not forget that artistic expression is a fundamental right. Interestingly, the curly hair on the Buddha statues made the early European Indologists to think that the Buddha was an African deity (Allen 2002).

Sri Lankan Buddhist art

Sri Lankan Buddhist art is said to be related to Amaravathi style; all Sri Lankan statues are depicted with curling hair bristles turning to right. The presence and prominence of the usnisha on local statues vary depending on the period. Toluvila statue, prominently displayed at the National Museum, is considered the earliest dateable statue in Sri Lanka. It is dated to 3rd or 4th century CE, has a less prominent usnisha and lacks the elongated ear lobes; it is said to be influenced by the Mathura school.

Since Dambulla temple dates to third century BCE, one wonders if the magnificent reclining statue in Cave 1 could be earlier than the Toluvila statue. There are several bronze statues from Anuradhapura period without usnisha. Towards late Anuradhapura period, usnisha is beginning to be replaced with rudimentary Siraspatha, which represents a flame. This addition evolved over time and became a very prominent feature during the Kandyan period and replaced the traditional usnisha completely (Figure 3).

Figure 3. Kandyan era statue with
Siraspatha

Incomparable workmanship

Then the question is how does the Avukana statue, which belongs to the early Anuradhapura period, have a siraspatha that is not compatible with the style of the period or the incomparable workmanship of the statue itself? I have come across two explanations. According to the Sinhala Encyclopedia, the original siraspatha was destroyed and a cement replacement was installed in recent times, likely in the early 20th century.

The other version is that the statue never had a siraspatha like many other contemporary stone statues. For example, the Susseruwa (Ras Vehera) statue, which is identical in style, and likely a contemporary work, does not have a siraspatha. During the Buddhist revival, a group of devotees from a Southern town felt that the lack of a siraspatha on such a great statue as a major deficiency, and they ceremoniously installed the crude cement ornament seen today.

This raises the question: which is more valuable, preservation and protection of archeological treasures or reconstruction to meet modern expectations and standards? For example, what would have been more impressive, the Mirisavetiya Stupa as it was found before the failed reconstruction attempts, or the current version that is indistinguishable from modern concrete constructs? Even though, one can assume it was done in good faith. What if the Mihintale Kanthaka Chetiya were covered under brick and concrete to convert into a finished product? Would it increase or decrease its archeological value?

Differences between reality and iconography

None of that should matter in following the Buddha Dhamma. In theory. However, when the influence of Buddhist iconography is deeply rooted in devotee’s mind, it is impossible to imagine the Buddha as a normal human being, with or without a clean-shaven head and a brown complexion. The failure to see the difference between reality and iconography or art, poetry, and literature can be detrimental as it could distort the fact that Dhamma is the truth discovered by a human being, and it is accessible to any human, here and now. That is responsible, at least in part, for the introduction of mysticism, myths, and beliefs that are rapidly sidelining of Dhamma.

How often do we think of Enlightened One as a humble mendicant who roamed the Ganges Valley barefoot, in the beating sun, and resting at night on the folded outer robe spread under a tree. Sadly, iconography and other associated myths have driven us too far away from reality and Dhamma.

Up until I was six years old, we lived in a place up in the Balangoda hills that had a kaolin (kirimeti) deposit. The older students in the school used it for various handcrafts, but for the youngsters, it was playdough, even though we had never heard of that term. After witnessing an artist working on a Buddha statue at the local temple, my friend Bandara and I made Buddha statues of all types and sizes. If any of them were to survive for a few thousand years at the site where the schools stood, future archaeologists may wonder if a primitive tribe existed there (of course carbon dating will show otherwise). Like that, looking at some of the thousands of statues that pop up on every street corner, the purpose of which varies, sometimes I wonder if they were made by a civilisation that was yet to finesse the art of sculpture or by kids having access to kirimeti. No wonder birds take liberty to exercise their freedom of expression.

by Geewananda Gunawardana